2024 World Malaria Day.
“The International Politics of Malaria”.
A Public Health Physician, Dr Eric Oluedo has congratulated Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM), for their Crusade for the use of DichloroDiphenylTrichloroethane (DDT) in eliminating Malaria in Africa. Speaking on “The International Politics of Malaria”, during the 2024 World Malaria Day celebration, Dr Oluedo praised AFM for their Book Titled “The Excellent Powder: DDT’s Political and Scientific History” which revealed why Malaria Eradication in Africa has not been possible, due to the economic interest of some powerful groups.
AFM promotes the use of the pesticide DDT as the most effective means of fighting malaria. According to its website, “AFM was founded during the fight to save DDT for malaria control, and has continued to advocate for the sound, judicious use of insecticides in disease control for almost a decade. AFM‘s most recent contributions include: the April 2010 launch of the book The Excellent Powder: DDT‘s Political and Scientific History. Till date, no properly replicated and confirmed studies have been able to show that environmental exposure to DDT has a detrimental effect on human health.”
It is the world’s most successful public health insecticide, saving millions upon millions of lives from insect-borne diseases. Yet despite decades of use and thousands of studies on its effects, DDT remains the world’s most misunderstood chemical.
Orchestrated, well-financed, earnest, but erroneous campaigns forced most countries, like Nigeria, to ban DDT without scientific justification. These campaigns created many myths and fears about DDT. This book, The Excellent Powder – DDT’s Political and Scientific History, dispels these myths and sets the record straight about this chemical, which continues to save hundred of thousands lives in poor countries today and could save hundreds of thousands more.
Most importantly, The Excellent Powder reveals that evidence that DDT harms human health is weak, failing the most basic epidemiological criteria required to prove a cause and effect relationship. The evidence that the chemical can save lives however is overwhelming. In spite of this, some activists and researchers continue to undermine the use of DDT in malaria control on the flimsiest and most questionable grounds.
The Excellent Powder provides readers with an absorbing account of the chemical that shaped much of the 20th century and the legacy of which will influence much of the 21st, AFM concluded.
