Rodney Muhumuza
3 June 2008
Kampala — The High Court in Kampala has ordered the Ministry of Health to suspend the spraying of DDT until there is a ruling on a suit that seeks to stop the spraying of the chemical in northern Uganda.
According to the interim court order, issued last Friday by Justice Arach Amoko, any spraying of the insecticide will be "null and void or otherwise illegal".
Mr MacDusman Kabega, whose Kampala firm represents some nine companies that are opposed to the use of the pesticide, said yesterday that he would tell court that the decision to introduce DDT in Uganda was unfair to the extent to which it ignored the practical concerns of communities where it is to be applied.
Mr Kabega's clients include: Lango Cooperative Union, Lango Organic Farming Promotion, Dunavant (U) Limited, Bo Weevil (U) Limited, Shares (U) Limited, Outspan Enterprises Limited, Kyagalanyi Coffee Limited, Bakwanye Trading Limited, and Pro Biodiversity Conservationists (U) Limited.
The order, which comes about a month since indoor residual spraying of the insecticide started in two districts in northern Uganda, will frustrate government efforts to put DDT-related controversy behind it.
In effect, it will also ensure that 320 Ugandans continue to die of malaria daily. The Ministry of Health has adopted indoor residual spraying (IRS) of DDT as one of the strategies that would control malaria.
Mr Ken Lukyamuzi, the Conservative Party president who opposes DDT, was in northern Uganda over the weekend and addressed a rally to bolster his campaign.
There has been no compelling evidence of the harm posed by DDT to human health, and defenders of the chemical say that its public health benefits cannot be ignored. Uganda announced that it would start using DDT in malaria control after the World Health Organisation declared in September 2006 that it supported the use of indoor residual spraying of the substance.
It is understood that some of the companies contesting the spraying of DDT supply the British American Tobacco - Uganda.
According to Mr Kabega, there is fear, for example, that the use of DDT could result in tobacco from Uganda being shunned on the international market.
Efforts to reach Dr Sam Zaramba, the director of health services at the Ministry of Health, were futile.
But Dr Myers Lugemwa, a malaria expert who is on the government's DDT team, said the ministry has the "competence and capacity to defend the use of any insecticide, including DDT, in malaria control".
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