YESTERDAY, the continent marked Africa Malaria Day. The burden of the disease on development and the health of individual people is intolerable.

Malaria is both a disease of poverty and a cause of poverty. It affects the health and wealth of nations and individuals alike. In Uganda alone, over 80% of the population is at risk of malaria infection, with pregnant women and children under the age of five being the most hit.

The disease accounts for 30% to 50% of all outpatient consultations, 20% of hospital admissions and between 9% and 14% of all the patients’ deaths. Some 320 people in Uganda die from malaria every day and more than $690m (sh1.2 trillion) is spent on the treatment and management of malaria annually, yet malaria continues to defy interventions put up over the years.

Over the decades we have seen progressive resistance to different malaria drug combinations, and each time a more expensive option is adopted to overcome the problem. The indirect costs of malaria to both the individual and the nation in terms of lost work days and income may be difficult to calculate in monetary terms but they are immense.

There is still no magic bullet against malaria so it is imperative that a strategy that does not just roll back malaria but kicks it out of this country, out of Africa and out of the world is adopted.

The arguments against DDT not withstanding, the developed nations kicked malaria out of their countries forever by using DDT. Many of the generations that were exposed to DDT then are still alive and well. Let us immediately and appropriately apply DDT to rid Africa of malaria.