According to this review article, titled "Short History of Malaria and Its Eradication in Italy With Short Notes on the Fight Against the Infection in the Mediterranean Basin",

In Italy at the end of 19th Century, malaria cases amounted to 2 million with 15,000–20,000 deaths per year.

They tried free distribution of quinine, and, as you have mentioned, vector control, which involved draining marshes and spraying DDT and other insecticides:

The campaign for the eradication of malaria from the whole national territory began in 1947 and ended virtually in 1948, with the total interruption of transmission of falciparum malaria. Indoor treatment with DDT (2 g of active ingredient per m2) of houses, stables, shelters, and all other rural structures continued into the mid-1950s and even later in some hyperendemic areas. (Figure 8). The results of the first two years of the year of DDT campaign were communicated by Missiroli in the IV Congress of Tropical Medicine and Malaria in Washington in 1948 under his vice-presidency.32 On that occasion Missiroli received unconditional awards. The continuation of the vector control campaign led to a further lowering of anopheline density and kept the interruption of the transmission of malaria.33 The last endemic focus of P. vivax was reported in the province of Palermo, Sicily, in 1956, followed by sporadic cases in the same province in 1962. The World Health Organization declared Italy free from malaria on November 17, 1970. Since then, almost all reported cases have been imported.

It is curious to note a parallel with a current involvement of philantropists in fight against malaria - back in 1920s and 1930s it was Rockefeller Foundation that funded the creation of Malaria Experimental Station and Institute of Public Health in Italy.

Not only that, the entire southern US up to and including Washington, DC was a malaria zone. Southern Florida was basically not considered fit for human habitation until malaria was eradicated.

At least in Mozambique, it seems that DDT have met resistance both from the West and (parts of) local population.

This report from 2000 from BMJ (British Medical Journal) blames foreign donors, although it does not provide any references for its figures:

It is possible that DDT will be used again in Mozambique. Its use there was stopped several decades ago, because 80% of the country's health budget came from donor funds, and donors refused to allow the use of DDT.

But environmental concerns are only a part of the whole picture, and, according to Mozambique's chief of infectious disease control, a smaller one.

DDT is used in indoor residual spraying (IRS) which, along with insecticide treated mosquito nets and Artemisinin Combination Therapies, is one of the three main interventions promoted by World Health Organization. But due to the fact that it has unaesthetic side effects and cannot be done everywhere, in some countries it became associated with social issues:

For IRS to be effective, at least 80% of homes and barns in an area must be sprayed,[4] and if enough residents refuse spraying, the effectiveness of the whole program can be jeopardized. Many residents resist spraying of DDT in particular. This is due to a variety of factors, including its smell[10] and the stains it leaves on the walls.[10][11][12][13] While that stain makes it easier to check whether the room has been sprayed, it causes some villagers to resist the spraying of their homes[13][14][15] or to resurface the wall, which eliminates the residual insecticidal effect.[12][15] Pyrethroid insecticides are reportedly more acceptable since they do not leave visible residues on the walls.[13]

In addition, DDT is not suitable for this type of spraying in Western-style plastered or painted walls, only traditional dwellings with unpainted walls made of mud, sticks, dung, thatch, clay, or cement.[10][15][16] As rural areas of South Africa become more prosperous, there is a shift towards Western style housing, leaving fewer homes suitable for DDT spraying, and necessitating the use of alternative insecticides.[15]

Other villagers object to DDT spraying because it does not kill cockroaches[13] or bedbugs;[12] rather, it excites such pests making them more active,[10][11][14][15] so that often the use of another insecticide is additionally required.[15] Pyrethroids such as deltamethrin and lambdacyhalothrin, on the other hand, are more acceptable to residents because they kill these nuisance insects as well as mosquitoes.[13] DDT has also been known to kill beneficial insects, such as wasps that kill caterpillars that, unchecked, destroy thatched roofs.[14]

As a result, Mozambique's chief of infectious disease control, Avertino Barreto, says that resistance to DDT spraying is "homegrown", not due to "pressure from environmentalists". "They only want us to use DDT on poor, rural black people," he says. "So whoever suggests DDT use, I say, 'Fine, I'll start spraying in your house first.'"[10]

Some Westerners also pattern match it to social issues, and not only environmental ones.

Yes, and this is an evil comparable to the slave trade.

I have looked for and never found any evidence for this. When pushed, a lot of people retreat to the unfalsifiable claim that it is secret pressure.

Africa does use lots of DDT. It used to use more, until mosquitoes developed resistance. Now it restricts it to the most useful applications in towns, especially residences and bednets.

The same way it was done in the US. Or even in, say, Sri Lanka -- a country that was having a very long and bloody civil war in the process.