DDT is a weapon in the fight against malaria
Re “Net gains for Africa,”
editorial, Aug. 7
While I applaud The Times for its recent editorials on malaria, I found the discussion of insecticide-treated bed nets strangely dismissive of indoor residual spraying. Spraying is an important alternate strategy to reduce human contact with malaria-bearing mosquitoes. For example, in certain parts of southern Africa where malaria vectors have become impervious to pyrethroids (the only insecticide class currently used to treat bed nets), house spraying with DDT is an essential tool in fighting malaria.
Unfortunately, pyrethroid-resistant mosquitoes are surfacing elsewhere in Africa. Other, more expensive insecticides may eventually replace pyrethroids, but, in the short term, the writing is on the wall. As long as a few overseas manufacturers continue making the cheap, crystalline powder that once saved millions of lives, the spraying of DDT inside poor African dwellings is likely to increase.
CLAIRE PANOSIAN DUNAVAN MD
Los Angeles
The writer, a tropical medicine specialist at UCLA, is a co-editor of “Saving Lives, Buying Time: Economics of Malaria Drugs in an Age of Resistance,” National Academies Press, 2004.
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