Malaria is an ancient killer, and it remains threatening today. An estimated 1 million people die every year of the disease (some estimates range as high as 3 million), and as many as 500 million people a year are infected.
It’s a health threat that desperately needs stronger efforts to combat it.
The primary killing ground is Africa, south of the Sahara Desert, where 90 percent of malaria deaths occur. Young children and pregnant women are most at risk. Those who survive the disease often are debilitated by the damage caused by the parasite that enters the bloodstream through a female mosquito’s bite.
Malaria today is largely absent in the developed world, curbed by decades of public-health measures, urbanization and, yes, insecticides.
One of malaria’s most potent foes is DDT, which is also the original poster boy for environmental degradation.
The insect-killing power of DDT wasn’t discovered until 1939, and use of the chemical became widespread during World War II. Swiss chemist Paul Herman Muller won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1948 for his discovery of DDT’s effects.
Less than 20 years later, Rachel Carson’s 1962 book “Silent Spring” put a different, evil face on DDT, condemning it for poisoning all manner of creatures as it moved up food chains.
The chemical was banned throughout much of the developed world in the 1970s, and Western aid organizations and governments began a long campaign of discouraging its use in poorer countries.
DDT never went away completely, but now it’s back in a very official way. Both the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have endorsed DDT for indoor use. It’s an appropriate step.
Indoor use of DDT involves spraying the walls of houses with the chemical, which acts as a repellant to mosquitoes and kills those that land on the walls. In recent years the preferred method of indoor mosquito protection has been insecticide-treated nets, but they haven’t provided the desired level of malaria control.
DDT isn’t a silver bullet; other insecticides, public-health improvements and anti-malarial drugs also are part of the effort. But it’s encouraging that USAID and WHO have decided not to let old qualms about DDT stand in the way of helping people in desperate need.
