OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Sunday 9.00pm
KWAZULU-Natal has reintroduced DDT to fight the malaria epidemic in the northern parts of the province, despite a worldwide ban on the toxic insecticide.
The spokesman for the provincial department of health, Dave McGlew, said at the weekend the use of DDT will be strictly controlled.
“This is not a situation we wanted, but since cases of malaria in the province have doubled we have to use it,” McGlew said.
Some 28000 cases of malaria were reported in KwaZulu-Natal last year, against 14000 cases in 1998.
McGlew said the use of DDT was stopped in the province in 1996. It was reintroduced last week because of the re-appearance of a vector mosquito that is resistant to other sprays.
DDT will only be sprayed on the joints between walls and roofs of houses in rural areas, he added.
A damper was put on hopes that a new, environmentally friendly control agent called Larvex 100 would provide the solution to the malaria epidemic this week after health officials at a seminar on malaria hosted by the Mpumalanga Parks Board warned that larvacides such as Larvex 100 have proved ineffective in the past. — African Eye News Service