Malaria and DDT

Malaria and DDT

Malaria has been a huge problem among many developing nations over the past century. The amount of people in the entire world that die from malaria each year is between 700,000 and 2.7 million. 75% of these deaths are African children (Med. Letter on CDC & FDA, 2001). 90% of the malaria cases in the world are located in Sub-Saharan Africa. Once again, the majority of these deaths are of children (Randerson, 2002). The numbers speak for themselves. Malaria is a huge problem and needs to be dealt with immediately.

There have been many attempts at preventing malaria, none of which have been very successful. These have usually involved protecting human beings from mosquitoes, the dreaded carriers of the disease, by eliminating their breeding places. Attempts have been made at destroying larvae as they grow in the water, but none have managed to stop the onslaught of malaria. Recently (before 1999), in some locations, certain drug-resistant strains of malaria such as P. falciparum have arisen. The P. falciparum strain is considered the most lethal form of malaria and can cause neurological damage (Poser, 1999).

This presence of strains of malaria that do not respond to conventional drug-treatment poses a new problem for malaria control. The hope is that a malaria vaccine can be developed. However, development of such a vaccine is far off. One possible developer of such a vaccine, Henri Vial of the Montpellier University II in France, has developed a drug that kills the malaria parasite by preventing it from replicating in the red blood cells. However, this drug, called G25, has only been tested on laboratory monkeys and still needs to undergo further testing. It is estimate...

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...s way into the water where it is absorbed by fish and marine animals. The substance is stored in the fatty tissues of the animal where it stays until it is needed, like during a sickness or when one is deprived of food. This can cause the immune system of an animal to respond to disease with less efficiency. Fish such as carp have shown significant immune-system suppression and high levels of pesticide-induced toxicity (Repetto, Baliga, 1996). If birds feed upon these aquatic animals, then they too will pick up the chemical. The thinning of egg-shells and therefore a decrease in successful births has been linked with exposure to pesticides such as DDT. However, these studies have been done in the field and therefore the results are uncertain and inaccurate. It is difficult to tell the extent of the chemical’s effect on the biological system (Repetto, Baliga, 1996).