At stake are the lives and wellbeing of millions of people, mostly in poor countries, at risk from malaria. If they succeed, DDT could be banned internationally by the year 2007.
Malaria is carried by mosquitoes.
The most cost-effective method of controlling malaria is to control mosquitoes by spraying the walls on which they rest with DDT, a chemical which is toxic to these insects but not to humans. The use of DDT has ensured that SAs malarial areas are now one-fifth the size they were before the Second World War. The disease, however, has been on the rise in SA and throughout the region. This is partly because of a reduction in DDT use, as well as higher rainfall in recent years and increased migration of people between SA and other highly malarial countries such as Mozambique. Malaria kills about 2.7-million people worldwide and leaves another 500 million chronically ill every year.