Rich nations such as the United States have long been pushing for a worldwide ban on DDT and are currently negotiating to ban the chemical along with 12 other so-called persistent organochloric pollutants. But DDT is still the most effective way to control Malaria in the developing world. Does the DDT ban impose unacceptable risks for people in the developing world in order to accommodate environmentalists in rich countries?
As the national Center for Policy Analysis pointed out recently, South Africa agreed to stop using DDT for malaria control in 1996. By 1999, however, cases of malaria began to increase dramatically — up from just a few thousand a year to well over 50,000 cases a year.
Using an exemption provided for some countries in the global ban on DDT, South Africa quickly returned to spraying DDT and the number of malaria cases has begun to decline.
Even without an explicit worldwide ban, only two countries — China and India — still produce DDT, and they do so mostly for internal use.
Source:
Environmental quandary: Malaria or DDT?. National Center for Policy Analysis, July 26, 2001.