Finally, the WHO is supporting the use of DDT...

We've blogged on this topic before...DDT is necessary in the fight against malaria...and mot of the NGOs are not allowing African countries to use it.

The World Health Organisation is urging powerful environmental groups not to oppose the use of the pesticide DDT to fight malaria in Africa, after a significant reversal of policy by the agency.

Arata Kochi, the director of the WHO's malaria department, issued his appeal to the green lobby after announcing that the agency now endorsed spraying the pesticide inside dwellings, especially mud and thatched huts, in mosquito-infested regions.

"I am here today to ask you, please help save African babies as you are helping to save the environment. African babies do not have a powerful movement… to champion their well-being," Mr Kochi said.
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He said he expected opposition, but prominent environmental groups contacted by The Sunday Telegraph yesterday were reluctant to be drawn into a row over the renewed use of the pesticide. The only group to speak out publicly so far has been the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), which questioned the effect of DDT on young children.

DDT is banned in the developed world and the WHO has discouraged its use in the Third World for three decades, but the organisation has now concluded that its life-saving benefits far outweigh the health and environmental risks.

"Indoor residual spraying with DDT and other insecticides will again play a major role in [WHO's] efforts to fight the disease." Mr Kochi said. "WHO will use every possible and safe method to control malaria."

Widespread DDT spraying proved remarkably successful in eradicating malaria in the United States, southern Europe, Russia and the Middle East after 1945. But an estimated 700,000 to 2.7 million people die of the disease each year, 75 per cent of them African children.

What took them so long?