DDT able to fight malaria

Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloromethylmethane, better known as DDT, is a well known weapon against malaria and mosquitoes. While DDT’s inventor won a Nobel prize in the 1940s for its unparalleled power in killing insects, the world was up in arms very soon, claiming that DDT harmed the environment and caused extensive damage to human health. By the 1970s DDT usage was banned in most of the western countries but continued to be used as an insecticide mainly in African and Asian countries.

Donald Roberts is a professor of tropical medicine at the U.S. military’s Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences. Richard Tren, heads a group called Africa Fighting Malaria.

Together they have released a book in which they claim that DDT is the only effective and lethal weapon against mosquitoes and malaria. They also firmly state that DDT’s adverse impact on the environment has never been proved beyond doubt.
While the main arguments for banning the use of the chemical was that using it caused birth defects in children and harmed wildlife, no conclusive evidence was ever put forward to establish these facts.

In countries like Africa and Ethiopia, exemptions to the treaty of 2004, which banned worldwide usage of DDT, continue to be taken advantage of. While non-chemical tools like mosquito nets can be used extensively to prevent mosquito bites, DDT cannot be ignored completely, even now. There is simply nothing to match its power against mosquitoes. When one considers that 176 children under the age of 5, fall prey to malaria every single day in the Ivory Coast, a West African Nation, it is difficult to abstain from using what is a sure-shot chemical against mosquitoes.

Roberts and Tren are encouraging the world to go back to DDT, in order to eradicate malaria as much as possible. They say that DDT is similar to chemicals found naturally and it cannot, therefore, harm wildlife. Others like David Santillo, a Greenpeace activist, argue that the harm caused by DDT to life can never be proved simply because we cannot deliberately expose living beings to a chemical to measure its impact. Therefore, the only way ahead for the world is to find friendly substitutes for DDT.