The United Nations has unveiled a plan to eliminate the use of DDT worldwide by 2020, replacing the toxic pesticide with other measures that sharply reduce the spread of malaria. In a joint statement, the United Nations Environmental Programme and the World Health Organization said they aim to achieve
a 30 percent reduction in DDT use by 2014, followed by its complete elimination six years later. Though officially banned by the U.N. in 2001, DDT is still used in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world to eradicate malaria-carrying mosquitoes that kill nearly 900,000 people a year. In place of DDT, the U.N. will set up 10 projects in 40 nations that mimic pilot programs in Mexico and Central America that greatly reduced the incidence of malaria. Among other things, those projects funded wider adoption of mosquito netting, the drainage of stagnant pools where mosquitoes breed, and the introduction of fish and bacteria that kill mosquito larvae before they hatch.