“Bring back the DDT” call
pp. 33-37 · Read in the full issue
Malaria In Png
“Bring back the DDT” call in East New Britain
Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain Province is suffering a dramatic rise in malaria cases and a doctor has blamed the provincial government.
Since it stopped the indoor spraying of DDT the figure had jumped from 13,600 in 1983 to 17,600 in 1984, said Dr Natha niel Tavil, from Korere village.
And he slammed the idea of keeping pigs and other animals under the house to lure mos quitoes away from humans as ridiculous.
The idea which came from the provincial health secretary was “impractical and un healthy.”
Animals were filthy and
should not be allowed to wan der anywhere near people’s eating and sleeping places.
Dr Tavil said whoever recom mended calling off the spraying had misled the government.
Spraying kept the parasite rate down to between 12 and 16 per cent for four years. Then suddenly in 1984 it went up to 34.5 per cent.
“The increase was felt throughout the Gazelle Penin sula and every family had a bout or two of malaria,” Dr Tavil said.
The rate was now back to the
continued on page 37
1960 level when there was no spraying. Despite DDT not totally eradicating the disease carrying mosquito, spraying was still an effective control which should be re-introduced.
In fact, until a new method or vaccine was invented, it was the only way of bringing any de gree of control.
Ecuador debt
vs. Galapagos
conservation
“The Galapagos Islands, Charles Darwin’s natural lab oratory for the investigation of the laws of nature, are them selves in the midst of a turbu lent evolution,” writes journalist Richard Lyons in The Sydney Morning Herald.
Just back from a visit to the islands, Lyons reports: A staggering foreign debt has forced Ecuador to cut drastical ly its spending on social prog rams, including environmental efforts.
The park’s budget has been cut by 75 per cent, the number of rangers from 75 to 50, and its patrol boat fleet from five to two. True, there is now less need for muscle in policing the 50 or so islands, only a few of which are inhabited.
For more than 200 years since their discovery in 1735, the islands were ravaged by pirates and whalers seeking, food, fuel and water. Some 100,000 of the tortoises that gave their name to the islands were carried off aboard ships.
Whalers and, more recently, fishermen deliberately stocked many of the islands with goats and pigs that have played havoc with the ecology. Goats have all but stripped some islands of the vegetation that is the tortoises’ nourishment.
Thus, the major problem has shifted from the deliberately rapacious early visitors to the animals they brought to the islands.
Packs of wild dogs roam some islands killing iguanas; house cats prey on the nests of the endangered Hawaiian Pet rel and rats attack flamingo and penguin chicks.