Zika, a virus transmitted to humans by a species of mosquito, was barely known by the public months ago, but it has already been labeled “a public health emergency of international concern” by the World Health Organization (WHO). Fortunately, there’s an effective solution on the shelf if the environmental ideologues will get out of the way of the lifesavers.

DDT, which has saved millions of lives, not only in other lands but in the United States as well, was banned decades ago because environmentalists concluded that it harms birds, fish and certain other wildlife. Nothing developed since has matched DDT’s ability to eradicate pests that threaten human lives. Prior to its prohibition, the pesticide had largely knocked out the mosquitoes that carry malaria, a disease often deadly in the tropics and in the Southern states. DDT was banished, but disease was not. Malaria has returned with a vengeance, killing 20 million persons since the ban.

Rachael Carson effectively vilified DDT in her 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” stirring an ecological backlash and launching the environmentalist movement. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT in 1972 and other nations followed, except for limited use in Africa and Asia. But opposition may be weakening. “Concern about DDT has to be reconsidered in the public health context,” says Dr. Lyle R. Petersen, director of the division of vector-borne diseases at the CDC.

Radical environmentalists cling to their belief that DDT holds long-term risks for all living things. Millions of humans, many not yet born, could be saved by DDT. The EPA has saved millions of baby birds by sacrificing uncounted human babies by withholding the solution at hand. DDT should be enlisted in the struggle. Birds and fish are important, but children are, too.