By Thomas R. DeGregori, Ph.D.
Posted: Monday, March 20, 2000
EDITORIAL
Publication Date: March 20, 2000
Most of us have seen the TV images of the heroic efforts of developed countries to save the stranded peoples of flood and wind ravaged Mozambique. The aftermath may be nearly as bad as the floods themselves. As the water recedes into stagnant pools ideal for breeding malaria-bearing mosquitos, the ongoing tragedy of Mozambique may be compounded by an upsurge of illness and death from malaria. Dr. Pierre Kahozi of the World Health Organization (WHO) pointed out that malaria is common in the region, but there are reasons to fear a large outbreak in the next month.
Why? The very governments that are so commendably aiding Mozambique today, are the same ones that have long pressured Mozambique and other developing countries not to protect themselves against the scourge of malaria by spraying with DDT. "Its use there was stopped several decades ago, because 80% of the country's health budget came from donor funds, and donors refused to allow the use of DDT," according to a report in the March 11 issue of the British Medical Journal(BMJ).
The BMJ report indicates that Mozambique may need to begin spraying DDT again. Parts of South Africa have already done so, following an "explosion in malaria" prior to the floods. Tragically, this race to control outbreaks of malaria is a recurrent pattern in poor third world countries. It results from a combination of pressures by donors and conservation organizations, as well as the increasing cost and decreasing availability of DDT. The Mozambiquan government has reported a "high degree" of malaria in refugee camps, but agencies are unable to get reliable disease statistics.
Neil Cameron, chief director of communicable diseases for the South Africa Health Departmant, reacted to the recurrence of epidemic malaria by renewing the use of DDT, which had not been used in South africa since 1995. Since the withdrawal of DDT, malaria cases there had more than quadrupled to 50,000, accompanied by hundreds of deaths.
There are somewhere in the range of 300 to 500 million known cases of malaria each year, and 90% of these occur in Africa. Of the roughly two and one half million people who die each year of malaria, most are in Africa, most are children, and most are poor or very poor.
Malaria is the number one cause of death in Mozambique, the number two cause of death in Africa (having just been overtaken by HIV last year) and the number one killer of children in Africa. It is estimated by many medical historians that malaria has killed more people than any other disease world-wide, including the U.S. as far north as Boston and Europe as far north as England, prior to the introduction of DDT after World War II. But now those who have benefited from malaria's eradication by DDT are in the forefront of those who would deny its benefits to others who need it most. Though its impact on wildlife is debated, study after study has failed to find any harm to humans from DDT. In contrast, its benefits to public health for control of disease-carrying insects, and to agriculture for pest control, make it one of the most life-saving chemical ever devised by humans.
There is now an attempt being made to enact a legally binding treaty for a global ban on the use of DDT and other "Persistent Organic Pollutants." The initial attempt at a ban failed as a result of a worldwide campaign against it by public health workers, scientists and the WHO, but another attempt will be made later this month with conservation and environmental groups leading the banning effort. These groups also want to ban the use of chlorine for sanitation, and the use of genetically modified crops in agriculture-including those like nutrient enhanced rice that would so greatly benefit the poorest and neediest of the world's population.
All this raises the question as to why the governments of the rich and prosperous nations and "environmental" organizations headquartered there are working so hard to harm the poor while claiming to save the planet.
