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Malaria control through vector control and the use of DDT was very successful for many years.
Malaria was one of the biggest killer diseases for centuries. Vector control started to be practiced towards the end of the 19th century and malaria was slowly brought under control especially in temperate climates. After the second world war, vector control using DDT enabled further progress to be made om the control of malaria, but a ban on the use of DDT imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States in the early 1970s caused much of this progress around the world to be arrested.
The following graphs show something of the history of success using vector control with DDT.
Malaria in Japan
At the end of the Second World War, malaria in Japan was a major disease. There were about 28,000 cases reported in 1946. Over the next few years the prevalence of malaria was reduced to negligable numbers ... well under a hundred a year from 1955 to 1995. This was achieved using an approach to control that targetted the vector, the mosquito.
Time series 1970 to 2001
This shows the significant reduction in malaria cases from 1970 to 1980 in PLACE TO BE IDENTIFIED using an approach that targetted the vector, the mosquito.
Time series 1971 to 2003
In the Kwa Zulu region of South Africa, from 1991 to 2000 the number of malaria cases increased dramatically after the use of DDT was discontinued. When interior residual spraying (IRS) using DDT was resumed in 2001 the number of cases reduced impressively
History of malaria in thge USA
In 1832 much of the United States had endemic malaria. By 1912, the area of malaria prevalence had been reduced substantially and by the 1930s reduced further. Most of the reduction was achieved by targetting the vector, the mosquito. There are vector control districts all over the United States to this day to monitor and control vector transmitted disease.
Malaria control in Latin America
There was considerable success in reducing the prevalence of malaria in Latin America from the 1960s to the 1980s. Subsequently the number of cases increased as efforts to control the vector were reduced in several countries. The graph relates to Brazil, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
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