Posted on 09/26/2006 9:14:04 AM PDT by aculeus
I've had malaria many times. The disease killed my son, two sisters and four cousins. Every year, it infects 400 million Africans and kills up to 1 million of our children.
Even at only $1,000 per life (and surely our lives are worth far more than that), malaria costs Africa $1 billion annually. We also lose millions of working days, billions spent on medicines and hospital visits, and billions because tourists and foreign investment don't come to our countries.
But finally there is hope that we can stop this death and devastation - provided we can move past old biases about a lifesaving pesticide called DDT. Yes, I'm referring to the DDT you've heard so many terrible things about - that it poisons the environment and endangers human health. It happens to be one of the keys to saving countless African lives.
Sprayed just twice a year on the inside walls of homes, DDT keeps 90% of mosquitoes from even entering. It irritates those mosquitoes that do come in, so they don't bite, and kills any that land. No other chemical does all that. And as used in public health programs, it's perfectly safe - for people and the environment.
That's how DDT reduced malaria by 75% in many areas, enabling doctors to use the new ACT drugs to treat the much smaller numbers of people who still get sick. By using DDT and the drugs together, South Africa cut its malaria rates by 95% in three years.
So using the pesticide would be a no-brainer, right? Wrong.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Actaully there are 4 types, and one is indeed the most serious. With the level of medical diagnosis/care available in Rwanda 40 years ago, I doubt that it was ever really determined which type(s) I had.
The general chaos of African society is plenty of reason not to launch a large-scale DDT program there. Anything that happens there happens in a haphazard way, and that's not wise when dealing with things like DDT and malaria. Past experience with large scale DDT programs found that DDT-resistant mosquitos began emerging within a year. Societies which are not capable of undertaking comprehensive, thorough eradication programs are very likely to get this sort of backfiring.
As for funding, the US provides a huge chunk of the funding for nearly all third world aid programs, and that will happen in this case as well, unless some legislation is passed to specifically prohibit US funding of DDT programs.
And still is.
No one individual slammite has ever killed 90,000,000 people; Rachel Carson has. Closest individual slammite to that would likely be Tamerlane, who'd be way, way back there around fifth or sixth place or some such on a top ten murder list. Rachel is numero uno.
Still, doesn't even come close to Islam's record in India alone, but he certainly does belong near the top of the list.
No, it's simpler, cheaper (cost of lives) And easier to use an insecticide such a DDT and larvasides to eradicate the disease.
These are not things that have to be done continuously, they are short term applications over a period of 2-3 years.
It takes much longer than that for any resistance (which isn't likely) to develop.
Careful monitoring after initial eradication would restrict future DDT use, and keep it down to local outbreak applications.
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