1905 -1934. Brazil, since the historic transformation of freeing Rio de Janeiro in 1905 from yellow fever city by the eradication of the Aedes aegypti infestations in the city, had been the leader in yellow fever eradication in South America, and indeed in the world with a committed national resolve and action to eradicate yellow fever from every afflicted village, town and city throughout the entire nation. By 1934, Brazil’s focus moved from eradication efforts to developing protocols for stopping any re-introducing the live yellow fever virus into cleared areas, either from the wild reservoir in the massive equatorial forests or from foreigners inadvertently bringing it in from neighboring countries that had not resolved their own yellow fever infestations.
This was especially remarkable given that Brazil’s warm equatorial climate and dense rainforests meant that in many communities, infestations of Aedes aegypti were not a seasonal problem, but a perpetual one - endemic. Many regions of Brazil had no advantages of mosquito-killing cold winters or dry seasons that had kept yellow fever outbreaks to only summer seasons in other countries, such as the United States. Yet, Brazil proved rapid, coordinated species-targeted Aedes mosquito eradication was completely achievable at a national level and by this would break the life cycle of the yellow fever virus, freeing communities from it.
It required a conscious commitment in Brazil to government and public health cooperation, funding and actions to build the organization required to make this happen. The structure created to achieve this was the Brazil Yellow Fever Service, staffed with public health experts, an early reporting and warning system, a cadre of trained mosquito eradicators in the communities and the mobility be dispatched to anywhere in the country.
By 1929, Brazil arguably had the world’s best knowledge base and boots on the ground experience on how to destroy yellow fever through mosquito eradication, what worked and what didn’t in the new mass yellow fever vaccination programs, with medical professionals trained in rapid response quarantine and medical treatment for yellow fever cases. It was perfectly tuned to yellow fever and the Aedes mosquito... but not to what unexpectedly arrived that year... Anopheles gambiae.
This is the chronology of the invader that was discovered already installed in 1930, its almost decade-long infiltration into the region of N.E. Brazil, to critical mass, exploding into a rare phenomenon of malaria epidemic conditions in 1938, engulfing the N.E. Brazil state of Rio Grande o Norte, an over 257,000 km2 area in deaths from malaria and starvation due to debilitations. Seemingly unstoppable, it guaranteed a future of frightening permanent endemic public health and terrible economic consequences for the nation of Brazil and the entire South American continent.
Brazil and D.R. Congo share the same equatorial climate, are defined by their incredibly immense rivers – the Amazon River and the Congo River - and both have massive expanses of tropical forests that host reservoirs of wild viruses and other diseases. Everything that was achieved in Brazil to destroy malaria in 1939-1940 can be achieved in Africa. Here’s the story from those who achieved it.
(Compiled from Anopheles gambiae in Brazil, 1930-1940, Soper and Wilson, 1943)
©2023
This was especially remarkable given that Brazil’s warm equatorial climate and dense rainforests meant that in many communities, infestations of Aedes aegypti were not a seasonal problem, but a perpetual one - endemic. Many regions of Brazil had no advantages of mosquito-killing cold winters or dry seasons that had kept yellow fever outbreaks to only summer seasons in other countries, such as the United States. Yet, Brazil proved rapid, coordinated species-targeted Aedes mosquito eradication was completely achievable at a national level and by this would break the life cycle of the yellow fever virus, freeing communities from it.
It required a conscious commitment in Brazil to government and public health cooperation, funding and actions to build the organization required to make this happen. The structure created to achieve this was the Brazil Yellow Fever Service, staffed with public health experts, an early reporting and warning system, a cadre of trained mosquito eradicators in the communities and the mobility be dispatched to anywhere in the country.
By 1929, Brazil arguably had the world’s best knowledge base and boots on the ground experience on how to destroy yellow fever through mosquito eradication, what worked and what didn’t in the new mass yellow fever vaccination programs, with medical professionals trained in rapid response quarantine and medical treatment for yellow fever cases. It was perfectly tuned to yellow fever and the Aedes mosquito... but not to what unexpectedly arrived that year... Anopheles gambiae.
This is the chronology of the invader that was discovered already installed in 1930, its almost decade-long infiltration into the region of N.E. Brazil, to critical mass, exploding into a rare phenomenon of malaria epidemic conditions in 1938, engulfing the N.E. Brazil state of Rio Grande o Norte, an over 257,000 km2 area in deaths from malaria and starvation due to debilitations. Seemingly unstoppable, it guaranteed a future of frightening permanent endemic public health and terrible economic consequences for the nation of Brazil and the entire South American continent.
Brazil and D.R. Congo share the same equatorial climate, are defined by their incredibly immense rivers – the Amazon River and the Congo River - and both have massive expanses of tropical forests that host reservoirs of wild viruses and other diseases. Everything that was achieved in Brazil to destroy malaria in 1939-1940 can be achieved in Africa. Here’s the story from those who achieved it.
(Compiled from Anopheles gambiae in Brazil, 1930-1940, Soper and Wilson, 1943)
©2023
1928 As the surety that improved accessibility via aviation between Africa and South America was soon to come, by 1928 public health officials visiting Natal, notably Dr. A. Lutz had raised their concerns of an increased risk of transportation of endemic diseases between the two continents, but had no idea that what they'd been dreading was only months away to happening.
1929 Sometime during 1929, African Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes, the most dangerous mosquito species vector for transmitting malaria to humans had boarded one or more French destroyers docked at Dakar, Senegal and in less than 100 hours to cross the Atlantic, had arrived in the port of Natal, flitted ashore and unbeknownst to anyone, had begun laying eggs and hatching larvae in Natal itself.
1930 March Pioneer French aviator Jean Mermoz on 12-13th March 1930 departed Saint Louis, Senegal on the west coast of Africa and made the first Africa to South America trans-Atlantic flight to Natal, Brazil, the inauguration of a regular trans-Atlantic airmail service.
1930 March About ten days later, after this anticipated, cheered and positive transformative historic event, connecting two continents, the preceding transformative historic event of a completely different and unwelcome nature between these same continents, one to the other, was finally discovered in Natal. Entomologist R.C. Shannon unexpectedly discovered an infestation of Anopheles gambiae in Natal, collecting over a thousand live larvae from a flooded field.
(Compiled from: Anopheles gambiae in Brazil, 1930 to 1940, Fred Lowe Soper and D. Bruce Wilson)
©2023
1930 March About ten days later, after this anticipated, cheered and positive transformative historic event, connecting two continents, the preceding transformative historic event of a completely different and unwelcome nature between these same continents, one to the other, was finally discovered in Natal. Entomologist R.C. Shannon unexpectedly discovered an infestation of Anopheles gambiae in Natal, collecting over a thousand live larvae from a flooded field.
(Compiled from: Anopheles gambiae in Brazil, 1930 to 1940, Fred Lowe Soper and D. Bruce Wilson)
©2023
1930 April Less than a month later, in the latter part of April, during a routine inspection tour of the Yellow Fever Service anti-larval work in Natal, the yellow fever technical advisor was informed by Natal's Director of the State Health Service that "malaria had unexpectedly become a most serious problem in the city."
(Compiled from: Anopheles gambiae in Brazil, 1930 to 1940, Fred Lowe Soper and D. Bruce Wilson)
©2023
(Compiled from: Anopheles gambiae in Brazil, 1930 to 1940, Fred Lowe Soper and D. Bruce Wilson)
©2023