Malaria and DDT

Malaria and DDT

Introduction

Malaria is a worldwide infectious parasitic disease of the liver and red blood cells caused by protozoa of genus Plasmodium. At present, infectious disease experts agree that malaria is the world's most important tropical disease caused by a parasite, and that the disease can and does exist in some temperate regions. Because more than 40 percent of the world's population lives in places where malaria is prevalent, this disease continues to cause a worldwide health crisis. According to World Health Organization (WHO, 2012) that more than 500 million people infected with malaria in every year.

DDT is the most infamous of the pesticides and the environmental and public health furor resulting from its overuse and misuse significantly fueled the beginnings of the environmental movement that eventually helped to ban it. In the mid- to late 1960s, DDT became more of a political issue than a real health threat. When it was banned in the United States in 1972, there were far worse substances being disposed of in the environment in large quantities. Public pressure in reaction to Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring was the whole impetus to ban DDT, even though the book contains then-unsubstantiated claims to its cancer-causing potential. The ban on DDT may be more symbolic than the dire necessity it was portrayed to be.

Discussion

Malaria

A chronic disease characterized by periodic acute attacks of chills and fever. The disease is the result of infection by the sporozooite parasite, plasmodium that lives in red blood cells and is transmitted to humans via the Anopheles mosquito.

Malaria is a worldwide infectious parasitic disease of the liver and red blood cells caused by protozoa of genus Plasmodium. The pathogen contains various stages that take place inside and outside the human host, with a portion of the cycle occurring in an insect. Female mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles act as the vector in malaria's transmission from infected to uninfected people. When living in a human host, Plasmodium behaves as a parasite, meaning it receives a benefit from its host while also harming the host (Irwin, 2010)

The Anopheles mosquito plays a crucial role in the malaria pathogen's development. Plasmodium undergoes sexual reproduction inside the insect's gut and develops into the infective form, which can be transmitted to humans in a mosquito bite.

According to WHO malaria caused significant impacts on economic. Malaria can decrease gross domestic product (GDP) by as much as 1.3% in countries that have high level of malaria transmission. The health costs of malaria are high because it needs both public expenditure and personal expenditure on prevention of malaria and treatment of malaria. Mostly poor people affects malaria because they live in dirty places and mosquitoes live there places. These people cannot afford expenditure of malaria treatment and health services. This organization has also pointed out, "Malaria takes an economic toll—cutting economic growth rates by as much as 1.3 percent in countries with high disease rates."

The World Health Organization (WHO) advocates programs to eradicate this mosquito as one of the principal malaria preventions (Irwin, ...