Cigarette giant British American Tobacco is leading a campaign to stop Uganda from joining one of Africa's most lauded efforts to date to control the blight of malaria.
Uganda has more than 12 million cases of malaria every year, killing 110,000 people, mostly children and pregnant women, and, encouraged by the success of other African countries in controlling malaria, the Ugandan government is preparing to spray the walls of homes with a weak solution of DDT to kill the disease-carrying anopheles mosquitoes.
Yet British American Tobacco, in a coalition with many other corporations in Uganda, has called for a delay to the spraying program, warning that the use of DDT could threaten lucrative exports of tobacco, coffee, cut flowers and other agricultural products.
The group says exports worth more than US$400 million and 600,000 Ugandan jobs could be lost if DDT is found to contaminate the export crops.
The companies have urged the Kampala government to carry out further studies on the use of DDT and to use of alternative methods, although they have been found to be ineffective against malaria in other African countries.
The controversial DDT has recently been endorsed by the WHO and other major public health groups as an effective and safe chemical to use against malaria.
Catherine Armstrong, spokesperson for British American Tobacco in London, said the company does not oppose the use of DDT.
"A consortium of 52 companies in Uganda, including BAT, issued a statement which outlined the potential negative and economically damaging impact of the use of DDT," she said.
"The group of companies asks that the government put in place measures to make sure that crops do not get contaminated. Crops stored inside family huts could be contaminated. If agricultural exports are rejected from the EU, the US and Australia, this would be disastrous for the economy and jobs," she said.
Anti-malaria activists are furious with British American Tobacco and the other companies in Uganda. They say many countries, including Mozambique, Zambia, Madagascar and South Africa have used DDT for decades against malaria without the rejection of exports.
South Africa offers a good example of the effectiveness of spraying homes with the DDT solution. In 1996 the South African government stopped using DDT and replaced it with synthetic pyrethroid insecticides.
The country almost immediately plummeted into one of its worst ever malaria epidemics -- from around 6,000 cases in 1995 to over 60,000 in 2000.
Richard Tren, director of Africa Fighting Malaria, called the company "hypocritical and callous" for its stand in Uganda.
"Decades of evidence have proved DDT can save millions of lives. That BAT would oppose DDT in this way is not only foolish, it is deadly and represents a truly shameful episode in the company's history," he said.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS