SIZWE SAMAYENDE, Nelspruit | Tuesday
CONTROVERSIAL insecticide DDT, which has been banned in the United States since 1973 after being linked to cancer, birth defects and neurological damage, will be sprayed in rural homes in Mpumalanga this summer in a bid to kill the mosquito that transmits malaria.
Deputy director for vector-borne diseases in the national health department, Dr Rajendra Maharaj, said dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) was highly effective in killing the malaria-carrying mosquito, Anopheles Funestus, which transmits the disease all year round.
“The mosquito was identified in KwaZulu-Natal in October last year, and DDT is already being used there,” said Dr Maharaj.
Environmentalists have called for DDT to be banned worldwide, saying it harmed wildlife as well as its documented effects on people.
Maharaj, who was a speaker at a doctors’ workshop on malaria organised by Nelspruit Medi-Clinic on Friday, said DDT did not pose any environmental threat because it was only sprayed on the inside walls of mainly rural homes in malaria areas.
He said that Anopheles Funestus was last seen in South Africa 50 years ago, when it was effectively destroyed by DDT.
He said that the number of reported malaria cases in South Africa had risen by 525% in the past 10 years, and that the department aimed to reduce malaria infections by 50% over the next 10 years.
The department would also undertake a regional approach to malaria control. He said a factor that contributed to the spread of malaria were visitors from high-risk malaria areas such as Mozambique, who had developed immunity against it.
“The mosquitoes feed on them when they come here, and then transmit the disease to vulnerable South Africans,” Dr Maharaj said. – African Eye News Service