Doing things the government way

[m1911owner]

The good news is that the US is finally acknowledging that DDT is important in combating malaria.  Here's the story:  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,194332,00.html

What blows me away is this section:

Malaria accounts for 10 percent of Africas disease burden and causes $12 billion yearly in lost productivity.

USAID reportedly will use about 20 percent of its $99 billion budget to fund indoor spraying with DDT, according to the Times. Between 1 million and 1.5 million people will be protected, a USAID official told the Times.

Well, let's see...  20% of $99 billion is $20 billion!

Compared with the $12 billion is lost productivity, something strikes me as really off-base with this cost.  Yes, I'm totally on board that preventing death and misery is worth doing, and savings in "lost productivity" aren't relevant to that mission of mercy.  But these numbers raise red flags.

But wait... This cost is to protect "between 1 million and 1.5 million people."  That's only a small fraction of the population of Africa.

Then I divided out the per-capita cost of this program.  $20B divided by 1M to 1.5M people gives a cost range of  $13,333 to $20,000 per person!  Assuming an average of four people per domicile, that's $53,333 to $80,000 per domicile sprayed.

How can we possibly spend that much money spraying DDT around a little hut, a few times a year???!!  I can't even begin to imagine how you can spend that much money.  The Orkin man would keep my place sprayed for a year for maybe a percent or two of that cost, and that's a much bigger place, at US wage rates.

Here is yet another example of how government is totally unable to accomplish anything at all in a competent manner.

[Guest]

Remember that is 13,000 to 30,000 AMERICAN dollars, being spent per person for this spraying in AFRICA. Considering the relative economies its significantly more money that it appears. The homes that are being sprayed could simply have been purchased for less than 1/5th of the cost of spraying them.

[RaggedClaws]

I hate to throw a monkey wrench into a good rant, but according to the article, malaria accounts for $12 billion lost in productivity yearly.  The ridiculously over-priced spraying is a one-time affair, no?  Or does that $20 billion have to last for a few years?  

If that's a yearly outlay, then your rant is spot on.  If not, then the numbers might not be so terribly bad.

[BozemanMT]

I would doubt that Africa as a whole sans oil and south africa has $12B in GNP.

[Leatherneck]

"I hate to throw a monkey wrench into a good rant, but according to the article, malaria accounts for $12 billion lost in productivity yearly.  The ridiculously over-priced spraying is a one-time affair, no?  Or does that $20 billion have to last for a few years?"

What good would a one-time spraying for mosquitos do? They do tend to come back after--oh, I don't know--15 minutes?

TC

[Art Eatman]

Most of the money will be spent on bribes to get permission from the various rulers to allow the saving of lives of their citizenry...

Or is that too cynical?

Art

[brimic]

Another problem would be procuring the DDT. It can't be manufactured in the US anymore since the asshat environmentalists got it banned.