South Africa winning the fight against malaria

South Africa has turned the tide on malaria, cutting mortality rates by 85 percent over the past 12 years, and hopes to soon eliminate the disease. Last year, only 70 people died from the mosquito-borne disease, compared with 460 deaths recorded in the year 2000, according to a report delivered at a Pan African malaria conference in Durban.

The number of people who caught malaria has come down to about one-tenth of the cases recorded that same year. Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said South Africa was well on its way to being a malaria-free country. Worldwide the disease kills an estimated 660 000 people each year, 90 percent of them in Africa with the majority being children.

Countries severely affected by malaria include Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Mozambique. Authorities in South Africa believe the continent's wealthiest and most developed country is closer to eradicating malaria, but admit that there was no quick fix. They aim to rid the country of the disease by the year 2018.

However, the fight to control infections has not been without controversies as the country relies on the highly contentious insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, otherwise known by its acronym as DDT, to kill the malaria-transmitting vectors. The chemical, which is sprayed inside houses, is linked to genital defects, infertility and cancer and is banned in many parts of the world.

After being halted in 1996, South Africa reintroduced it in 2000 as part of a plan to curb a major malaria outbreak. According to the report, the insecticide has been used cautiously in recent years, "with targeted spraying only in high risk areas". Its safety has always been questioned, with local authorities maintaining that it is less expensive but more effective amid a spike in insecticide-resistant vectors in recent years.

Those at the receiving end of DDT are normally impoverished households in the north-eastern Limpopo region, which borders Mozambique and the part of the south-eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal, where malaria is endemic. Prevention has seen cases drop to less than one per 1 000 people in affected districts, according to the report.

Motsoaledi said strategies needed to be well thought out, practical and systematically and robustly implemented. The University of Pretoria's professor Tiaan de Jager acknowledged the adverse genetic and hormonal risks linked with DDT, adding however that its efficacy cannot be discounted. He said a combination of factors like improved housing and sanitation and education around the disease should form part of the control strategies.

SAPA, 9 October 2013