India News Today photo shows insecticide fogging in crowded Delhi neighborhoods to combat Chikungunya virus by striking down mosquitoes that transmit the disease from one human to another.
In the western world, libertarians, so-called conservatives and anti-science people call for a “return” of DDT to fight Zika virus spread.
But in the world’s DDT capital, India, where DDT is still made and more DDT is applied than in the rest of the world combined, DDT’s failures stand out. News reports say health care in key Indian cities is hamstrung by doctors and nurses getting mosquito-borne diseases.
Why don’t they just use “the magic powder,” DDT, to wipe out mosquitoes? Oh, Dear Reader, India has used DDT extensively, for everything, for 60 years. Mosquitoes that carry disease, and all other mosquitoes, and many other insect pests, developed resistance and immunity to DDT from that use.
Apart from the fact that DDT would be the WRONG pesticide to use for anything other than malaria-carrying mosquitoes from the genus Anopheles, it simply does not work.
If DDT advocates paid attention to news and history, they’d not call for more DDT anywhere for any reason.
Subhead:
Apart from doctors, even nurses, other members of the medical staff and sanitation workers are going on leave at a time when the number of people afflicted by dengue and chikungunya this year in the city and its suburbs has crossed two thousand.
As outcry over an onslaught of viral diseases in the Capital reaches fever pitch and hospitals struggle in the face of an unrelenting tide of patients, the men in white too have started calling in sick.
Apart from doctors, even nurses, other members of the medical staff and sanitation workers are going on leave at a time when the number of people afflicted by dengue and chikungunya this year in the city and its suburbs has crossed two thousand.
Malaria is carried almost always by Anopheles, but chikungunya is carried by two species of Aedes, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. These mosquitoes also carry dengue fever and Yellow fever. A. aegypti is the principal carrier of the Zika virus, worldwide. Health workers being felled by dengue and chikungunya tells us the area would also be fertile territory for the spread of Zika virus, if it were introduced there.
Careful watchers, therefore, will understand that DDT has worn out its usefulness against a wide variety of mosquito-borne diseases including Zika.
“In our hospital, 10 per cent of the staff is currently down with fever,” said Dr Ramesh Chugh, medical superintendent of Pt Madan Mohan Malaviya Hospital in south Delhi. “We have over 100 doctors, and currently 7-8 doctors are down with fever.”
Experts say heavier than usual rainfall, a large number of construction projects and scores of open drains in Delhi are allowing mosquitoes to breed in stagnant water.
Far too many commenters fail to understand that DDT was never the chief tool in fighting malaria, or any other disease. Instead, DDT was used to knock down local populations of mosquitoes, temporarily, so health care and better housing and other measures could cure humans of the diseases and remove mosquito breeding areas from areas around human homes and human activities. India’s failure to provide good sewage drainage, good storm sewage drainage, and otherwise plug up potholes and even tiny water catching places allows mosquitoes almost free rein. India relied too long on poisoning everything with DDT, instead of building a mosquito-resistant urban area.
At Lok Nayak Hospital in central Delhi, 18 doctors are on leave. “Either the doctors are down with fever or somebody in their family is ill. The doctors are taking leave for at least 4-5 days. We have had cases where physicians were ill but returned to work early seeing the number of patients,” said a senior doctor.
NURSES AND SANITATION WORKERS ALSO ON LEAVE
In east Delhi’s Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital, 18 members of the medical staff, including doctors, nurses and sanitation workers, are absent. “In a staff of nearly 1200, 10-15 doctors are on leave due to viral illnesses,” said Dr Punita Mahajan, medical superintendent of Baba Ambedkar Hospital in northwest Delhi. “We are not exerting pressure on the doctors to continue if they feel slightly unwell as it is very important for the hospital to ensure that they remain healthy.”
The Delhi government has asked hospitals to ensure that dengue and chikungunya patients are treated without distress.
Officials say the health department has already dedicated an additional 1,000 beds for those suffering from fever at the Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital, Janakpuri Super Speciality Hospital and Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital.
These institutes have been designated nodal hospitals for fever in the city. All hospitals- government and private – in the National Capital Territory have been directed to increase their surge capacity.
“While doctors are trying their best to remain on duty till the effect of vector-borne diseases recedes the city, the shortage in staff and the new directions from the government would add to the existing burden,” said a doctor on condition of anonymity.
The Delhi government says it is fully prepared to battle with the onslaught of diseases and has denied in the city high court claims that the Capital is facing its worst dengue crisis.
In an affidavit filed in the court, it said strict surveillance of preparedness and impact of these diseases has been carried out for taking further preventive measures as, due to environmental conditions, the number of diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and malaria shows an upswing during July to October.
India continues to learn that DDT is not magic, not often useful, and sometimes detrimental to disease control efforts.
Will the rest of the world watch and learn? No, DDT will not and cannot help in the fight against Zika virus’s spread to humans. Waste no more time wondering, but get on with the hard work of draining mosquito breeding places, improving houses with window screens and other improvements, and developing vaccines and other medicines. Now.
More:
- India discovered DDT fails against malaria, big time, in 2015
- India’s discovery that DDT fails against most other insect-vector diseases led the nation to agree to stop making DDT by 2020; as India is the last nation making the pesticide, DDT should be gone from use within a decade
- According to World Health Organization (WHO) reports under the Persistent Organic Pollutants Treaty (POPs, or Stockholm Convention), only nine other nations besides India found any use for DDT in 2015; use may stop before 2020
- “Delhi in tight grip of monsoon mayhem, Chikungunya on rise, 423 cases reported,” India Today, August 27, 2016
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
[…] Ed Darrell […]
LikeLike
[…] DDT’s effectiveness diminishes rapidly, as does the effectiveness of the other eleven insecticides generally used for IRS against malaria […]
LikeLike
Problem with DDT is it doesn’t work. It no longer kills mosquitoes the way it did in 1955. Every mosquito on Earth has alleles of resistance, and many populations are completely immune, almost as immune as bedbugs.
So, using DDT defeats the purpose. It still effectively kills mosquito predators who cannot evolve nearly so fast as mosquitoes, and it does NOT kill mosquitoes, leaving them free to breed, multiply and spread disease.
LikeLike
So far, there is not an antivirus to fight Zika. Prevention is the best we can do. Even there, our current defenses are, at best, primitive.
In India, a country where even “Developing” would be a stretch, there is untold poverty, a lack of sanitary conditions and even potable water, there solution seems to be: DDT is cheap and, with 1.3 billion people, the poor are expendable.
We are an advanced society, a wealthy economy and should be working harder to eradicate the Aedes Aegypti mosquito. We should be setting the standard, and yet we’re not. Why does political idiocy always have to get in the way?
LikeLike
Makes sense!
LikeLike