Operation Cat Drop

Presurfer reader Stanley send me a link to a very strange story.

In the early 1950's, the Dayak people of Borneo suffered a malarial outbreak. The World Health Organisation had a solution: to spray large amounts of DDT to kill the mosquitoes that carried the malaria. The mosquitoes died; the malaria declined; so far so good.

But there were unexpected side effects. Amongst the first was that the roofs of the people's houses began to fall down on their heads. It seemed that the DDT had also killed a parasitic wasp which had previously controlled thatch-eating caterpillars. Worse, the DDT-poisoned insects were eaten by geckoes, which were eaten by cats.

The cats started to die, the rats flourished, and the people were threatened by outbreaks of typhus and plague.

Read this article to find out what the World Health Organisation did to cope with this problem.