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South Africa's war on malaria is damaging the health of some children because the DDT insecticide used to kill the parasite is affecting their fathers' sperm, a study found.
The decade-long research examined the impact of DDT, which is banned across much of the globe because of its toxicity, on the sperm of 50 South African men who live in a malaria endemic region and whose homes are sometimes sprayed with the insecticide.
"There really is a pressing need to find alternative ways to control for malaria and to put those in place, such as vaccines and alternative pesticides, McGill University's Sarah Kimmins, the study's lead investigator, wrote. "DDT is impacting not only the health of the exposed generation but potentially the next generation as well."
The study - carried out by researchers from South Africa's University of Pretoria, Canada's McGill and Université Laval - showed the DDT exposure may be causing changes to sperm that are damaging fertility and embryo development.
"This is a critical new step for the field because while there are many studies of animals demonstrating toxin effects on the sperm epigenome," the link in humans had previously not been comprehensively shown, Kimmins said.
The review also looked at blood and semen paired samples from 47 Greenlandic Inuit men who eat a traditional marine mammal diet and are at a high risk of exposure through accumulation of the toxin through the Arctic food chain.
That's as pollutants that evaporate in warm climates can be dumped in colder areas of the globe through rain and snow, according to the peer-reviewed study that was published last week in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. That trend is being exacerbated by global warming, the researchers wrote.
READ | Malaria cases spike in Malawi, Pakistan after 'climate-driven' disasters
"It's long been accepted that the environment is critical to child health and the well-being of the mother because she carries the baby and she lactates, et cetera," said study co-author, Janice Bailey, who worked for Université Laval at the time of the study. "But fathers have been excluded from that equation. We tend to think all they have to do is fertilize."
DDT was first used during World War II to combat malaria and typhus among troops and was later used as an agricultural and household pesticide. In 1972 the US Environmental Protection Agency issued a cancellation order for it because of its risk to wildlife and people.
Despite a global treaty controlling its use, some African countries have special permission to use DDT for malaria control when needed as it's a long-acting insecticide that's been very effective in controlling the deadly disease.
Malaria kills almost 620 000 people a year, largely in sub-Saharan Africa, with most being children under the age of five. In the next six years, the WHO aims to reduce both the incidence of malaria and mortality from the disease by 90%, and to eliminate it in 35 countries.
Earlier this year children in Cameroon become the world's first to get routine malaria immunizations after the Central African country adopted the World Health Organization-recommended shot.
