Can malaria be eradicated?
Yes. But certainly not easily, and not for many years in Africa. What’s required is money. Even if not eradicated, malaria can certainly be reduced to dramatically lower levels than exist today. Malaria has already been successfully eradicated or brought under control in some countries. The Netherlands: In the 1960’s malaria was a problem in the The Netherlands. Many people died of malaria between 1960-69. By the early 1970’s there were no malaria deaths. This was achieved through spraying of a chemical called DDT. Use of DDT to control malaria is controversial because the insecticide has harmful environmental effects. However, its use is still allowed for malaria control in special circumstances such as a recent epidemic in South Africa. It was possible to eradicate malaria in the Netherlands because the scale of the problem wasn’t so large that it required extraordinary amounts of money and the money that was required, whilst substantial, was available. Vietnam: Here the number of ma
