DDT - Back by Popular Demand

The Word Health Organization (WHO) has endorsed the indoor spraying of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) to control malaria-carrying mosquitoes, reversing a 30-year policy. The Organization said there is little risk from the insecticide when it is used appropriately and that any risks are far outweighed by the effectiveness of DDT in controlling a disease that kills one million people annually. Said one WHO
official, “The scientific and programmatic evidence clearly supports this reassessment. DDT presents no health risk when used properly.”
New data that suggest minimal effects to the environment or health from indoor spraying of DDT have largely eliminated the concerns which led to the ban on DDT in the early 1980s. The 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants implemented a global ban on DDT, but allowed about 25 nations to keep using the insecticide for vector control to combat malaria under strict conditions. The WHO said of the dozen insecticides WHO has approved for house spraying, DDT is the most effective. For about $5, a household of five people can be protected for a year, during which time the incidence of the disease is being reduced by 90%.
One of the proponents of the use of DDT is South Africa, which reintroduced DDT for indoor use several years ago after finding that malaria-carrying mosquitoes had developed resistance to other insecticides. Since then, malaria case and fatality numbers have fallen to all-time low levels and South Africa has moved towards malaria elimination. Currently, 14 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are using indoor spraying programs and ten of those are using DDT.
Activist organizations are split in their reaction. Environmental Defense, which launched the anti-DDT campaign in the 1960s, now endorses the indoor use of DDT for malaria control, as does the Sierra Club and the Endangered Wildlife Trust. Others are less enthusiastic. (Pesticide & Toxic Chemical News, 9/18/06).