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Last week’s announcement that the World Health Organization lifted its nearly 30-year ban on the insecticide DDT is perhaps the most promising development in global public health since… well, 1943 when DDT was first used to combat insect-borne diseases like typhus and malaria.

Read the whole thing here.Concerning the effects of Malaria (according to Wikipedia):

Distribution and impactMalaria causes about 350–500 million infections in humans and approximately 1.3–3 million deaths annually[1] — this represents at least one death every 30 seconds. The vast majority of cases occur in children under the age of 5 years[2]; pregnant women are also especially vulnerable. The death rate is expected to double in the next twenty years.[3] Precise statistics are unknown because many cases occur in rural areas where people do not have access to hospitals and/or the means to afford health care. Consequently, many cases are undocumented.[3]Malaria is presently endemic in northern South America, South and Southeast Asia, and much of Africa; however, it is in sub-Saharan Africa where 85–90% of malaria fatalities occur.[4]…in West Africa, Ghana and Nigeria have malaria throughout the entire country, though the risk is lower in the larger cities.Social and economic effectsThe disease has been associated with major negative economic effects on regions where it is widespread. A comparison of average per capita GDP in 1995, adjusted to give parity of purchasing power, between malarious and non-malarious countries demonstrate a five-fold difference (US$1,526 versus US$8,268). Moreover, in countries where malaria is common, average per capita GDP has risen (between 1965 and 1990) only 0.4% per year, compared to 2.4% per year in other countries.[6] In its entirely, the economic impact of malaria has been estimated to cost Africa US$12 billion every year. The economic impact includes costs of health care, working days lost due to sickness, days lost in education, decreased productivity due to brain damage from cerebral malaria, and loss of investment and tourism.[2] In some countries with a heavy malaria burden, the disease may account for as much as 40% of public health expenditure, 30-50% of inpatient admissions, and up to 50% of outpatient visits.[7]

Malaria has a terribly negative impact on both the lives and economic situations of the people it affects. Why then did it take the WHO almost 30 years to reverse a ban on DDT - one of the best proven tools humans have to combat this disease - when the science behind the threat of DDT came under scrutiny and attack almost immediately after the ban was put in place? Following the idea that Bush should be held accountable for the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq because he relied on faulty intelligence, shouldn’t the previous heads of the WHO be held accountable for the deaths their reliance on poor information has caused - except on a MUCH larger scale?

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