Until last Friday, September 15 2006, the single most pernicious suitor of female mosquitoes, DDT, had been discarded by the World Health Organization (WHO).

But just as it recently made frank remarks much to the annoyance of Oxfam and Medicine San Frontiers, that drug patents were not the main barriers to accessing essential medicines in poor countries, WHO has delivered yet another painful but effective pill.

This time the one-stop pill promises to end the endless pain and circus about the desirability of the single most effective weapon against the war on malaria- DDT.

Official estimates from Ghana's National Malaria Control Programme show that 17,000 Ghanaians die annually from Malaria. The Ghanaian Health Minister says the disease has been responsible for 36 per cent of all admissions in the country's hospitals over the past ten years.

However, in a country where statistics aren't sacrosanct and reluctantly used when it bodes political distaste, one wouldn't be surprised to know that Malaria inflicts more damage in the country side where the poor cannot afford what is even the cheapest remedy.

The picture emerging for the rest of sub-Saharan Africa is even gloomier. In 2002, malaria killed 150,000 Ethiopians, 100,000 Ugandans and 34,000 Kenyan children.

Malaria accounts for 10% of Africa's disease burden, with an annual estimated damage to the continent of US$12 billion. According to the Global Heath Reporter, the estimated cost to effectively control malaria in the 82 countries with the highest burden is about $3.2 billion annually.

However, such amount is usually a cash cow for consultants as Paul Driessen author of "Eco-Imperialism: Green power · Black death" notes- "In 2004, USAID spent $80 million "on malaria." But 85 percent of this went to consultants, and 5 percent to promoting the use of insecticide-treated nets. It spent nothing on actually buying nets, drugs or pesticides."

Poignantly, Malaria rates have risen 10% in the eight years since the World Health's Organization's Roll Back Malaria campaign promised to cut rates in half by 2010.

WHO's decision promises to cut the cash cow that rewards bureaucratic inefficiency with gold plated Mercedes and pointed ball pens.

The decision comes after decades of lobbying by reality-based groups and individuals that the only common-sensical approach to fighting malaria in countries especially averse to logical physical planning is DDT.

An Economic Historian who worked on primary sources on the history of malaria eradication in Southern Italy between 1943-1955 told me last year that "DDT was banned because it slightly thins the eggs of birds of prey.

But the ban probably caused up to 400 million unnecessary premature deaths since the 1950s, in the Third World! That's more deaths than Hitler, Stalin, MaoTse Tung, Idi Amin and all the tyrants and wars of the whole 20th century, all put together. So hypocritical too, the West only banned it after they'd already cleaned up their malaria! India never accepted the ban."

Is it DDT safe? According to Paul Driessen "Hundreds of millions of people -

American GIs, Holocaust survivors, and parents and children all over the USA, Europe and Asia - were sprayed with DDT, with no significant ill effects".

But some African countries had since 2000, disregarded the UN and WHO when it comes to DDT. Paul Driessen testifies-"South Africa's DDT household spraying program cut malaria rates by 80% in 18 months. The country was then able to treat a much smaller number of seriously ill patients with new artemisinin-based drugs, and slash malaria rates by over 90% in just three years! Mozambique trains a few people in each community, and sends them out to spray every house twice a year, in a successful and inexpensive program. Zambia has a similar program."

My Historian friend also testifies, "I myself had a lot of small mosquitoes in my bedrooms in Italy for 17 years because my wife wouldn't let me use insecticides - not even the benign ones still authorised for sale after the ban.

We got stung and stung and couldn't sleep at nights. When she left, I sprayed and in 20 minutes all the mosquitoes disappeared for ever."

However, the Ghanaian Health Minister confessed to this writer that he had been meaning to introduce DDT in Ghana, but his subordinates at the Health Ministry had scuttled the efforts- the same aloofness that killed and callously attacked the nervous system of many a malaria patient in Ghana after the infamous artesunate-amodiaquine was trumpeted as the best remedy against Malaria.

The Ghanaian Food and Drugs Board in particular, woefully failed to conduct proper tests before recommending the artemisinin-based drug to their already economically burdened victims.

Now though we can breathe a sigh of relief from the bureaucratic mischief surrounding Malaria treatment and particularly the cacophonous advertisements of mosquito coil repellents.

But many more battles remain when it comes to treating diseases in developing countries.

Unfortunately, the intransigence of health authorities in developing countries originally armed by top-down politics, emotionalism (the forte of groups like MSF) and blinded by limited or non-existent property rights give way to piracy- the human vector that exacerbates disease.

Why for instance, should the Ghanaian Food and Drugs Board urge Indian generics maker Workhadt, to export the drug ZITHROMAX to Ghana through its representative Sharp Pharmaceuticals, and register it in 1999 when Pfizer Ghana the original patent holder until 2008 had already registered it prior to the date? Quite irresponsibly, the FDB tells Pfizer to go to court and sort it out with Workhadt.

Imagine Ghana, a country whose judicial system is corrupt, slow in disposing over 60,000 land cases not to mention its institutional inefficiencies that fail to separate simple pirated music and video CDs from their original copies, veering into intellectual property battles!

Nigeria is no better. However, after a seven year legal battle, the Nigerian Federal Court of Appeal on 15 May 2006, delivered judgement in favour of Pfizer Nigeria for the "tort of unlawful interference in business interest" against sellers of a parallel import of its VIAGRA tablets.

Counterfeits make over 50 % of the Nigerian as well as Ghanaian drugs market with little political will to fight the menace. Even in relatively well off South Africa, piracy does not make it to the top 20 priority crimes list.

The Nigerian ruling is instructive in that it demonstrates a commitment to an enabling business environment that will induce other pharmaceutical companies to invest in new and better medicines that will replace old, less effective and efficient ones.

Weak Intellectual Property laws means lower economic growth as the emergence of copy industries adds little value than innovator industries would have.

However Big Pharma continues to be demonized by misguided anti-development establishments even after making huge concessions on first line treatment of HIV/Aids- from US$ 10,000 to US$ 130 a year, after investing over US$500 million in search of effective antiretroviral.

However altruistic Big Pharma is expected to be, altruism and morality are not the defining factors in economic development.

What enhances economic development is a strong property rights based economy with a political will to enforce contracts under the rule of law,lower taxes, minimal government parastatals, decentralised markets , free speech and a decentralisation of power and resource ownership.

Taken together, these broad reforms will enhance individual entrepreneurship and promote economic well being of a country. As economies of poor countries develop, environmental cleanliness and good physical planning will ultimately act as insurance against diseases of poverty.

Meanwhile, let us thank the WHO for the bold decision on DDT and urge it to do more. As my historian friend noted, "No one would like to be trapped inside a net in bed with a hungry female mosquito, equipped with infra-red sensory detection. She will always get her fill of blood in the end and wait patiently until her target is asleep. What man can escape a predatory female?"

Franklin Cudjoe is director of Ghanaian think-tank Imani (www.imanighana.org) and co-author of "The Water Revolution: Practical Solutions to Water Scarcity" and author of a forth coming publication, "Hobbled Trade: Trade Barriers within Africa". Imani is beginning a project on the economic burden of diseases in Ghana. Please write to franklin@imanighana.org if you want to support this project.