There is cause and effect to everything. Had we had DDT in Africa all these years, it would have allowed the population to grow faster and exceed their ability to find food and shelter. They may have used up their natural resources faster, and famine and disease would be the result. It’s all relative.
Your point is well taken, but people are really the greatest resource, assuming that their leaders instill in them logic, hard work, clear thinking and the concept of delayed gratification....
It is easy to think of people as resource/wealth depleters and not wealth generators, but that is fallacious. As someone who has spent several years in Africa, I have seen, firsthand, the effects of malaria on the finances of African friends.
Whether malaria takes the family breadwinners or dependents, it is ruinous to the family-especially in African culture. When you are busy paying exorbitant medical and funeral bills, you have no capital left to provide food and shelter to your existing family. This leaves everyone in the family more vulnerable to whatever disease comes along, be it Malaria, AIDS, typhoid or cholera. Obviously no development or capital wealth can develop in the country.
The “effect” of no DDT in Africa (as well as corrupt regimes) is that there are fewer bright, energetic, hopeful Africans available to develop their natural resources and provide food and shelter. There are still an abundance of natural resources in Africa which sit unused alongside the graves of malaria victims.