Is DDT really such a good idea?
Source: AlertNet
Another critic voices his objections to the World Health Organisation's recent decision to allow DDT spray to be used indoors in the fight against malaria.
Chris White, malaria programme leader with the African Medical and Research Foundation, accuses the West of "(throwing) out opinions without really understanding the context or culture of Africa."
For DDT to be effective against the disease, at least 80 per cent of all households must be covered every 6-12 months, and this involves coordinated teams, he writes in The Nation. White suggests that to even imagine any such "full-scale military exercise" in the Congo basin, for example, is ludicrous. Nets, on the other hand, last four to five years.
"The new WHO statement is misleading and operationally unsound," he concludes.
Franklin Cudjoe, director of Ghanaian think-tank Imani and co-author of "The Water Revolution: Practical Solutions to Water Scarcity", is full of praise for the move. "Bravo, WHO!" he writes in Ghana's Accra Mail. "Please keep thinking right!"
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26 Sep 2006 08:42:44 GMT
Mr. White erects another awkward strawman for the anti-DDT community to maul when he claims that advocates of an integrated approach to malaria control including DDT are also arguing for it to be used *everywhere*. Neither WHO nor advocacy organizations like Africa Fighting Malaria believe that any single approach will eradicate malaria in Africa. What they are saying is that each country should be free within a given donor-financed malaria control program to develop its own approach, including IRS with DDT.