Revisionist Malaria History?

At Malaria Matters, Bill Brieger suggests that a new report offers a "revisionist malaria history":

A new report on the implementation of Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) by the World Health Organization begins with the following 'historical' perspective: "In the 1950s and 1960s the WHO led malaria eradication campaign eliminated the risk of malaria infection for about 700 million people mainly in Europe, Asia and Latin America within a period of about 20 years using IRS as a major tool. In the 1980s, following the global consensus to replace malaria eradication campaign by a long term control program, use of IRS was significantly reduced. In Africa, the intervention was abandoned except in some countries in southern and eastern Africa where IRS remained the corner stone of the malaria control strategy." The report goes on to expound on the return of IRS and its potential for success throughout Africa.

The above statement makes it sound like the world community just woke up one day and decided, "Let's stop IRS", with little reference to problems faced by famed Malaria Eradication Program (MEP). Fortunately Randall Packard has also recently published a book on the history of malaria that helps set the record straight on the MEP.

Technically the MEP was launched in 1955 and came to an official close in 1969, but even before it started, its main technical intervention, IRS with DDT, had already shown signs of mosquito resistance. A number of factors including low levels of economic development, poor health system infrastructure and donor fatigue led to the close of MEP. It truly was a daunting task given the limited tools and difficult environment in many countries.

The entries on the individual countries in the report do give a more accurate history. For example:

Zanzibar Island runs an independent malaria control program which promotes a different strategy from that of the
mainland. Indoor residual spraying in Zanzibar was first initiated in the 1950s. But it was interrupted from 1958 to
1965 due to policy change. It was reinitiated in 1966 and was again ceased in 1987 due to lack of funds and
appearance of vector resistance to DDT which caused program failure (Ministry of Health, Zanzibar). Since then
malaria control efforts have concentrated on case management and later on ITN promotion.