DDT, a pesticide banned in the developed world, should be used to spray houses in all countries where people suffer from malaria, the World Health Organisation said on Friday, 30 years after it phased the practice out.
The new push to use DDT to kill the malaria-transmitting mosquito in Africa and other parts of the world with severe death tolls from the disease will dismay many environmentalists. They fear the polluting effects of the chemical will spread, although the WHO says spraying should be limited to the insides of houses and their roofs. Arata Kochi, the new head of the WHO's malaria programme, has made no secret of his determination to bring back the chemical weapon that helped rid Europe and the former USSR of malaria decades ago. "We must take a position based on the science and the data," he said in Washington.
"One of the best tools we have against malaria is indoor residual house spraying. Of the dozen insecticides WHO has approved as safe for house spraying, the most effective is DDT."
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