Countries move toward
more sustainable ways to roll back malaria
ahead of Millennium Development Goals
4th Meeting of the Conference
of the Parties to the UNEP-Linked Stockholm
Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
Geneva/Nairobi/Washington
DC, 6 May 2009 - The United Nations Environment
Programme and the World Health Organization,
in partnership with the Global Environment
Facility, today announced a rejuvenated
international effort to combat malaria with
an incremental reduction of reliance on
the synthetic pesticide DDT.
Ten projects, all part
of the global programme "Demonstrating
and Scaling-up of sustainable Alternatives
to DDT in Vector Management", involving
some 40 countries in Africa, the Eastern
Mediterranean and Central Asia are set to
test non-chemical methods ranging from eliminating
potential mosquito breeding sites and securing
homes with mesh screens to deploying mosquito-repellent
trees and fish that eat mosquito larvae.
The new projects follow
a successful demonstration of alternatives
to DDT in Mexico and Central America. Here
pesticide-free techniques and management
regimes have helped cut cases of malaria
by over 60 per cent.
The success of the five
year-long pilot indicates that sustainable
alternatives to Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane
(DDT) are emerging as cost effective solutions
that may be applicable regionally and globally.
The Integrated Vector
Management (IVM) strategy promoted by the
World Health Organization (WHO) provides
the framework to include these measures
in combinations of interventions adapted
to differing local circumstances.
Allied to measures such
as improved health care, monitoring and
education the findings could set the stage
for meeting the twin aims of achieving the
health-related and environmental Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 while also
ridding the world of the persistent organic
pollutant DDT.
The initiatives come
amid long-standing and growing concern over
the use of DDT and evidence that in many
countries there is increasing mosquito resistance
to the pesticide.
However concern over DDT is matched by concern
over the global malaria burden in which
close to 250 million cases a year result
in over 880,000 deaths. Thus any reduction
in the use of DDT or other residual pesticides
must ensure the level of transmission interruption
is, at least, maintained.
The international community
has, under the Stockholm Convention, agreed
to ban a 'dirty dozen' of persistent organic
pollutants including, ultimately, DDT on
environmental and health grounds.
However, a specific
and limited exemption was made for the use
of DDT to control malaria, because it was
recognized that in some situations adequate
alternative control methods were not currently
available.
The aim of the new projects,
a major initiative of the Global Environment
Facility (GEF) with close to $40 million
funding, being spearheaded by WHO and the
UN Environment Programme (UNEP), is to achieve
a 30% cut in the application of DDT world-wide
by 2014 and its total phase-out by the early
2020s if not sooner, while staying on track
to meet the malaria targets set by WHO.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary
General and UNEP Executive Director which
hosts the secretariat of the Stockholm Convention,
said: "The new projects underline the
determination of the international community
to combat malaria while realizing a low,
indeed zero DDT world".
"Today we are calling
time on a chemical rooted in the scientific
knowledge and simplistic options of a previous
age. In doing so, innovative solutions are
being catalyzed and sustainable choices
brought forward that meet the genuine health
and environmental aspirations of a 21st
century society".
"WHO faces a double
challenge - a commitment to the goal of
drastically and sustainably reducing the
burden of vector-borne diseases, in particular
malaria, and at the same time a commitment
to the goal of reducing reliance on DDT
in disease vector control", said Dr
Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General.
WHO sees these projects
in the context of IVM which it promotes
as the approach of choice to control transmission
of malaria and other vector-borne diseases.
A key element of IVM is a solid evidence
base for the effectiveness of combinations
of locally-adapted, cost-effective and sustainable
vector-control methods. This approach will
facilitate sustainable transition away from
DDT.
Monique Barbut, Chief
Executive Officer and Chairperson of the
Global Environment Facility, the financial
arm of the convention and which is funding
over half of the initiative, said: "The
GEF is investing in these projects to take
decisive action toward ridding the world
of dangerous chemicals now and forever.
The dividends from these investments will
mean a cleaner, safer and sustainable environment
for future generations. "
Notes to Editors
Mexico and Central America
The first of the demonstration
projects, which began in 2003, has been
coordinated by the Pan American Health Organization
of the WHO in partnership with a wide range
of bodies including UNEP, the Commission
for Environmental Cooperation, and the eight
country governments.
It has involved the
Ministries of Health of Belize, Costa Rica,
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico,
Nicaragua and Panama where DDT has been
extensively sprayed in homes and onto water
bodies in the region order to combat malaria
since the 1950s.
More than 89 million
people in Mesoamerica live in areas suitable
for malaria transmission of which over a
third or 23.5 million live in highly endemic
areas.
The work, involving
just under $7.5 million from the GEF and
co-financing of $6.4 million, has pioneered
the demonstration of "integrated vector
control" methods working with 202 communities
of 50 municipalities in the eight countries.
The work covered close
to 160,000 people directly and an estimated
6.8 million indirectly representing nearly
30 per cent of those in the highly effected
areas.
Various malaria control
strategies and techniques have been tried
and evaluated including:
Community participation
as central axis of the control activities
Equity prioritizing
rural areas with mostly indigenous populations
in critical poverty and the persistence
of malaria
A multidisciplinary
and multisector approach involving the environment
and education sectors to the health sector
Combination of control
methods according to the Global Strategy
in the Fight Against Malaria and the Roll
Back Malaria initiative.
Destruction of parasites
in the population through rapid diagnosis
and treatment including improved counseling
and supervision of oral treatments
Reduction of contact
between mosquitoes and people via treated
bed nets; meshes on doors and windows; the
planting of repellent trees like neem and
oak and the liming of households
Control of breeding
sites by clearing vegetation, draining stagnant
water ditches and channels and the use of
biological controls such as fish and bacteria
in some countries
Elimination of places
near houses that attract and shelter mosquitoes
through, for example the cleaning and tidying
up of areas in and around homes alongside
the promotion of personal hygiene
The project achieved
a 63 per cent reduction in malaria cases
and a more than 86 per cent cut in ones
linked with Plasmodium falciparum, the malarial
parasite that causes the most severe kind
of infection and the highest death rate
globally.
The researchers point
to other benefits including the strengthening
of national and local institutions involved
in combating malaria; improved scientific
data on DDT contamination of communities
and action on stockpiles of persistent organic
pollutants.
During the project more
than 136 tons of DDT and over 64 tons of
chemicals such as toxapehene and chlordane
were pin pointed.
These stockpiles are
scheduled for export and destruction under
a separated but related UNEP treaty, the
Basel Convention on transboundary hazardous
waste.
Rolling Out Projects
Globally
Projects are now going
global with several new, five year regional
demonstrations of sustainable alternatives
to DDT launched, or set to be launched over
the next 12 months.
These include one involving
Eritrea, Ethiopia and Madagascar and a larger
regional initiative with Djibouti; Egypt;
Jordan, Morocco; the Islamic Republic of
Iran, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
A third project is involving
Georgia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in the
Southern Caucasus and Central Asia with
a possibility of including relevant neighboring
countries as well.
Another is focusing
on Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in order to
develop a Decision Taking Tool for governments
allowing them to evaluate health, social
and environmental impacts and policy tradeoffs.
Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson/Head
of Media
Ms. Maureen Shields Lorenzetti, GEF Spokesperson
