May 7th, 2009 · No Comments

From Green Right Now Reports

For decades, relief work in Africa has fought a deadly disease with an environmentally deadly chemical, spraying with DDT to quell malarial outbreaks, even though world health agencies know that DDT has a devastating effect on the environment, killing wildlife and contaminating water supplies.

Today, the UN Agencies announced they will try to move 40 countries in Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and Central Asia, away from reliance on the persistent, toxic chemical by using other methods to fight mosquito-born malaria, which infects more than 250 million people a year, claiming 880,000 lives annually.

The new techniques include eliminating mosquito breeding sites, securing homes with mesh screens and introducing installing mosquito-repelling trees and fish that eat mosquito larvae, according to a United Nations news release.

The new projects evolved from a successful five-year pilot program using DDT alternatives in Mexico and Central America, where the pesticide-free approach has reduced cases of malaria by 60 percent, the UN reports.

The UN and the World Health Organization (WHO) with help from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) hope to cut DDT use worldwide by 30 percent by 2014 while continuing to reduce malaria.

“The new projects underline the determination of the international community to combat malaria while realizing a low, indeed zero, DDT world,” said UN Environment Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner. “Today we are calling time on a chemical rooted in the scientific knowledge and simplistic options of a previous age.”

Malaria is a sometimes fatal disease caused by a parasite transmitted by infected mosquitoes. Human victims first experience fever, headache, and vomiting. It is endemic in tropical areas, including Sub-Saharan Africa.

DDT, the synthetic pesticide Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane was first found effective in fighting malaria and typhus during World War II. But its use as an agricultural insecticide after the war became controversial when people realized that the persistent chemical created widespread environmental damage. It’s commonly blamed for the near extinction of the U.S. national bird, the American Bald Eagle, and for polluting ground water and soil. Environmentalist Rachel Carson sounded the alarm about DDT in her seminal work, Silent Spring.

DDT is not the only pesticide used to kill mosquito populations in malaria-prone parts of the world; many others are used as well, but DDT may be the most controversial chemical deployed against malaria, given it has been banned for agricultural use around the world in recognition of its harm to the environment.

In some areas, it is believed that mosquitoes have developed a resistance to DDT.

(Photo credit: United Nations)