In Africa, DDT Makes
A Comeback To Save Lives
by Marjorie Mazel Hecht
Spurred by the dramatic and life-saving results in a few African nations that persisted in using DDT, a larger group of nations, now malaria-ravaged, want to use the banned pesticide. Marjorie Mazel Hecht reports.
The use of DDT for spraying the inside walls of houses, a proven way to quickly stop the rate of malaria incidence, is making a comeback in African nations where saving lives has been given priority over the fears and lies of environmentalists.
In Uganda, Minister of Health Brigadier Jim Muhwezi has renewed house spraying in the most malarious areas, with the approval of the Ugandan Cabinet. Muhwezi dismissed the critics of DDT, saying, "How many people must die of malaria while these debates continue? If DDT can save lives, why not use it as we wait for the alternatives," as reported in the Kampala newspaper, New Vision, on April 27. Muhwezi also noted that the country of Mauritius was about to be declared malaria free because of its use of DDT.
In Zambia, where malaria incidence and deaths had climbed since the 1980s, the Health Minister is aggressively pursuing the use of DDT to fight malaria, after great success using DDT in the copper mining areas beginning in 2000. When the Konkola Copper Mines began spraying the inside walls of houses with DDT, there was a 50% reduction of malaria in one year. The next year, there was a further 50% reduction, and since then there have been no malaria deaths in that region.
In Zimbabwe, Minister of Health David Parirenyatwa reintroduced DDT because it was "cheap and more effective, with a longer residual killing power." He told the Bulawayo Chronicle in October 2003, "So many people have died of malaria since January and we are doing our best to control it.... DDT is very effective, because it sticks for a long time on the walls and kills a lot of mosquitoes with a single spray.... South Africa and Swaziland are using it, and I don't see why we should not use it."
In Kenya, the DDT fight is still on, with the director of Kenya's premier research institute, KEMRI, taking a strong stand for the use of DDT, and another research institute, the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology, taking the anti-DDT, environmentalist view. Malaria now kills 700 Kenyans a day, and as KEMRI director Davy Koech told the opposition, "Anything that can reduce malaria deaths by 80% should be given another thought."
Kenya had a terrible outbreak of malaria after heavy rains in 2002, with hundreds of deaths. According to the group Doctors without Borders, there are about 8.2 million cases of malaria reported in Kenya per year. The epidemic-prone areas are the highlands, where about 23% of the population lives.
South Africa made the decision to bring back DDT in the year 2000, after a four-year hiatus in its use, during which time the malaria cases and death rates surged in the worst epidemic in the country's history. In 1996, South Africa had substituted a synthetic pyrethroid insecticide for DDT, under pressure from environmentalists. But the mosquitoes became resistant to this pesticide. As a result, between 1996 and 2000, the number of malaria cases in South Africa increased by more than 450%, with an increased mortality rate of nearly 1,000%!
After one year of DDT use, the incidence of malaria in the worst-hit province, KwaZulu Natal, fell by 80%.
The DDT program for malaria control has the support of South Africa's leading researchers, doctors, and malaria control experts, who released a statement in April 2004 backing the indoor spraying program, and slamming the latest permutation in the DDT scare stories, that DDT lowers sperm levels and quality. The statement notes, "We believe that the Department of Health is correct in its choice of DDT in its malaria control program, and as scientists, medical practitioners, and public health professionals, endorse its use."
Killed by the Big Lie
It may seem only rational when people are dying by the thousands, and when malaria kills one African child every 30 seconds, for a country to institute DDT house spraying, which is known to efficiently prevent malaria, and has a proven record of no harm to human beings. But such an assumption overlooks the huge aura of fear and ignorance about DDT, built up by the Malthusian lobby over the past 35 years. The very word "DDT" is enough to invoke terror today among the ignorant and gullibleé*�nd also some of the well-meaning.
DDT was banned in the United States in 1972 on the basis of a big lie, not science (see box). In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency held seven months of hearings on the issue, producing 9,000 pages of testimony. The EPA hearing examiner, Edmund Sweeney, ruled, on the basis of the scientific evidence, that DDT should not be banned. "DDT is not carcinogenic, mutagenic, or teratogenic to man [and] these uses of DDT do not have a deleterious effect on fish, birds, wildlife, or estuarine organisms," Sweeney concluded.
But two months later, without even reading the testimony or attending the hearings, EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus overruled the EPA hearing officer and banned DDT. He later admitted that he made the decision for "political" reasons.
As a result, just as a few African nations and other tropical countries were on the verge of wiping out malaria, by using DDT to control the mosquito vectors that spread it, those programs were shut down. Countries could not afford to give up the funds for their health and development programs, from donor nations that now would not support DDT. Instead, they gave up DDT. The malaria-carrying mosquitoes were the immediate beneficiaries, and malaria soon became Africa's largest killer, only more recently to be equalled by AIDS. There are an estimated 300-500 million new cases of malaria per year now, 90% of which are in Africa. There are 2.7 million deaths from malaria per year, mostly those of children under 5 years old.
But the toll of malaria is not measured simply in deaths. Malaria is a terrible disease, sapping the strength of those who do not die, making them feverish, chilled, with repeated vomiting, and too sick and weak to work or farm. Malaria overburdens the limited health systems of poor countries, and ruins their economies.
Too Many Lives Saved?
At the time DDT was banned, it was recognized as having saved more lives than any other man-made chemical. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences estimated that DDT had prevented 500 million human deaths from malaria, since it came into use during World War II. Millions of troops and refugees would have died from disease at the end of the war, had they not been dusted with DDT to kill the body lice that spread typhus.
The safety record of DDT was excellent. No human harm was ever documented. Health records around the world showed that when malaria incidence was controlled using DDT, populations were healthier, infant mortality decreased, and population growth increased. Why was DDT banned, after such spectacular success? The reason was given bluntly by Alexander King, founder of the Malthusian Club of Rome, who wrote in a biographical essay in 1990, "My chief quarrel with DDT in hindsight is that it has greatly added to the population problem."
Morally, the save-the-environment-and-forget-the-people argument is outrageous. The First Secretary at the Washington Embassy of one large African nation, said, "how can they say this when people are dying of malaria, and we know that DDT will contain the spread?" He recalled the 1960s, when he was growing up in Africa, when DDT was in use and had completely wiped out mosquitoes and malaria in his region. "What is the human cost of not using DDT? Look at the number of lives we are wasting. We should use DDT until there is something better."
In Africa, DDT Makes a Comeback To Save Lives
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