Major break through for Africa on DDT
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Dear all,
Kudos to all of you for the enlightening debate and above all for lending a voice to our many children that have needlessly succumbed to malaria. The message is getting through and may the almighty God bless you. Hongera!
Regards,
Karanja R.
Major break through for Africa on DDT (2)
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Dear Colleagues
It is really good news that DDT and interior residual spraying (IRS) is being embraced by WHO ... and we should be grateful for this. But the willingness of the "north" and the international institutions to waste years and years, and thus allow some millions of people to die needlessly is still a horrible fact ... and totally immoral.
The next step is for the international community to embrace a comprehensive integrated mosquito and malaria control (IMMC) approach. The cost of an IRS program with DDT is probably going to be about 1/3rd the cost of an insecticide treated bednet program, an IMMC approach could be 1/3rd again as cost effective. Sadly, nobody seems to have done much accounting for performance in the relief and development sector, so it is difficult to prove these cost effectiveness figures, but cost effectiveness modeling suggest that these are valid projections.
Cost effectiveness would not matter if there was a surplus of money available ... but we all know that money is limited. In this situation, ineffective use of money then equates to more people dying ... in my book, an immoral outcome.
With regard to DDT use ... there still has to be vigilance. While the WHO has embraced DDT, and so also has the EU administration, there are still "Environmental" groups in Europe and other places that could pressure corporate organizations to boycott products from countries using DDT for IRS. These groups must be stopped in their tracks, and companies encouraged to "Buy Africa" because it is good business and the right thing to do.
Peter Burgess
Transparency and Accountability Group
The IMMC Consortium
mailto:peterbnyc@gmail.com