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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Save Africans, kill mosquitoes |
| 2006-05-05 |
| This took far too long and should never have happened in the first place. 50 million dead too long. The yawn that greeted the announcement this week -- reported on by Joyce Howard Price -- that officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development are now vigorously endorsing and funding the use of DDT in Africa is representative of the world community's general lack of concern over the hundreds of millions of people who suffer from malaria every year. We applaud USAID's decision, even if we regret how long it's taken to reach it. Put bluntly, malaria's killing spree -- believed to be somewhere in the realm of 50 million people since 1972 -- is worse than AIDS. Of the 500 million annual victims, 90 percent live in Africa. In the sub-Saharan nation of Uganda alone, malaria is responsible for the deaths of 100,000 children under the age of 5 every year. In dollar amounts, the United Nations says malaria costs Africa about $12 billion annually, or about 40 percent of its health expenditures. None of which is news to those who have witnessed the ongoing genocide for years, pleading with Western nations to lift their unsubstantiated fears of using DDT, whose effectiveness in combating malaria remains unmatched. Consider that in South Africa, which used DDT before banning the substance in 1996, malaria rates jumped from a few thousand every year to 50,000. Despite opposition from the international community, in 2003 South Africa reversed the ban and watched its malaria rates return to their pre-1996 levels. More at the link, including expected Euro whining at US unilateralism. |
| Posted by:phil_b |
| #1 I remember the numerous, often bloody riots in South Africa demanding to ban DDT, wid the more fanatical activists claiming the SA Govt was using DDT to poison black Africans. DDT was the pre-AIDS AIDS "white man's" anti-Black/African chemical or poison of the moment. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-05-05 22:07 |