DDT finds favour in fight against malaria

John Kutama, sub-district manager of the Limpopo Malaria Institute, in Limpopo Province, has overseen annual indoor residual spraying for many years and remembers a time when villagers refused the controversial treatment, unsure whether the chemical would do them more harm than good.

The annual anti-malaria treatment involves spraying the interior walls of a house with dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT), a synthetic chemical that has been banned for decades in many countries because of its harmful effect on people and the environment, and the belief that there are alternative and less harmful insecticides, like pyrethroids, which are thought to be just as effective.

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