Eradication represents a complete change of philosophy and a recognition of the equal rights of all citizens to protection from infection, no matter where they live. Eradication, by its very nature, is public health with a conscience. The public health control officer can sleep tranquilly, salving his conscience with the thought that most of his responsibility has been discharged – that he did not have enough money to do any more. The eradicator knows that his success is not measured by what has been accomplished but, rather, is the extent of his failure indicated by what remains to be done. He must stamp out the last embers of infection in his jurisdiction. His slogan must be: ANY IS TOO MANY.

~ Fred Lowe Soper

Fred Lowe Soper Accomplishment Completion Conscience Disease Control Equal Rights Eradication Failure Goal Setting Health Infection Leadership Malaria Malaria Eradication Medicine Morality Perfection Protection Public Health Quality Of Life Success Yellow Fever Eradication

My dear Gorgas,Instead of being simply satisfied to make friends and draw your pay, it is worth doing your duty, to the best of your ability, for duty’s sake; and in doing this, while the indolent sleep, you may accomplish something that will be of real value to humanity. Your good friend, ReedDr. Walter Reed encouraging Dr. William Gorgas who went on to make history eradicating Yellow Fever in Havana, 1902 and Panama, 1906, liberating the entire North American continent from centuries of Yellow Fever epidemics.

~ William Crawford Gorgas

William Crawford Gorgas Comradeship Diligence Disease Control Doing The Right Thing Duty Ebola Encouragement Encouragement Quotes Epidemics Friendship Friendship True And Loyal Great Men Heroes Human Condition Leadership Loyalty Malaria Eradication Medical History Medicine Mosquitoes Perserverance Perserverance Quotes Public Health Teamwork Walter Reed Yellow Fever Yellow Fever Eradication

Fortunately for the cause of science and of humanity, we had as Governor-General of Cuba at that time General Leonard Wood, of the United States Army. General Wood had been educated as a physician, and had a very proper idea of the great advantages which would accrue to the world if we could establish the fact that yellow fever was conveyed by the mosquito, and his medical training made him a very competent judge as to the steps necessary to establish such fact. General Wood during the whole course of the investigations took the greatest interest in the experiments, and assisted the Board in every way he could.

~ William Crawford Gorgas

William Crawford Gorgas Cooperation Disease Control General Leonard Wood Heroes Leadership Leonard Wood Malaria Eradication Medical Discoveries Medical History Mosquitoes Public Health Quality Of Life Supporting Others Teamwork U S Army Vector Control Vision Yellow Fever Yellow Fever Eradication

It was not feasible to lose time in making careful surveys or extensive preliminary studies of possible control methods, learn how to get rid of Anopheles gambiae by actually getting rid of Anopheles gambiae.

~ Fred Lowe Soper

Fred Lowe Soper Anopheles Gambiae Effectiveness Leadership Malaria Malaria Eradication Mosquitoes Public Health Sucess Sucesses Taking Action

Preferring steady progress, slow and imperfect, is a good philosophy for the defeated.

~ Fred Lowe Soper

Fred Lowe Soper Disease Control Failure And Success Leadership Leadership Quotes Malaria Eradication Progress Public Health Success

His was the strong soul, gentle, but tempered with fire, fervent, heroic and good, the helper and friend of mankind. It is such as he who make progress possible.

~ Thomas W. Martin

Thomas W. Martin Achievers Advancement Character Disease Control Heroic Inspired Living Leadership Malaria Eradication Medicine

It is much easier to evaluate perfect rather than partial results.

~ Fred Lowe Soper

Fred Lowe Soper Action Expectations Expectations Quotes Leadership Malaria Eradication Progress Public Health

Over a century now after Dr. William Gorgas wiped Yellow Fever out of Havana and Panama, and by that out of an entire continent, and more than half a century after Fred Lowe Soper led the eradication of Anopheles gambiae out of Northeast Brazil, their names are unknown, their carefully-detailed, boots-on-the-ground methods that they described in detail to leave expressly for generations to study and learn from to apply to malaria - and specifically they both had the desire for the destruction of malaria in Africa on their minds - is unread. The mistakes they warned about, the assumptions that they discovered to be useless and ineffectual in the field against disease-bearing mosquitoes are repeated today, while what Gorgas and Soper found to be effective and efficient in real-life conditions are routinely ignored or unknown, avoidable errors blithely doomed to be repeated thanks to modern ignorance of their incredibly important and transformative historical successes in public health. In the battles against malaria, to be ignorant of Gorgas’ and Soper's work in eradicating the mosquito that carries it is to be hobbled by the lack of hard-earned field knowledge, practical and effective discoveries that remain completely relevant and critical to success in eradicating malaria today.

~ T.k. Naliaka

T.k. Naliaka Africa Anopheles Gambiae Disease Control Fred Lowe Soper Leadership Malaria Malaria Eradication Mosquitoes Public Health Success William Crawford Gorgas

I am sorry for you tonight, Mr. President. You are facing one of the greatest decisions of your career. Upon what you decide depends on whether or not you are going to get your canal. If you fall back upon the old methods of sanitation you will fail, just as the French failed. If you back up Dr. Gorgas and his ideas, and you let him make his campaign against mosquitoes, then you get your canal. I can only give you my advice; you must decide for yourself. There is only one way of controlling yellow fever and malaria, and that is the eradication of the mosquitoes. But it is your canal; you must do the choosing and you must choose tonight whether you are going to build that canal.

~ Thomas W. Martin

Thomas W. Martin Administration Block Impediments Leadership Malaria Eradication Panama Canal Public Health Science Yellow Fever

Many ‘experts’ don’t possess the imagination or vision or any of the logistical expertise required to achieve malaria eradication. Their opinions shouldn’t be allowed to hold back men and women who do possess these qualities from achieving the ‘impossible.

~ T.k. Naliaka

T.k. Naliaka Africa Expertise Leadership Logistics Malaria Eradication Public Health Skill Sets Success Success Quotes

Amateurs are fond of advising that all practical measures should be postponed pending carrying out detailed researches upon the habits of anophelines, the parasite rate of localities, the effect of minor works, and so on. In my opinion, this is a fundamental mistake. It implies the sacrifice of life and health on a large scale while researches which may have little real value and which may be continued indefinitely are being attempted… In practical life we observe that the best practical discoveries are obtained during the execution of practical work and that long academic discussions are apt to lead to nothing but academic profit. Action and investigation together do more than either of these alone.

~ Ronald Ross

Ronald Ross Achievement Action Discovery Disease Disease Control Eradication Human Value Malaria Malaria Eradication Malaria Research Mosquito Eradication Nobel Prize Public Health Purpose Success Vector Control

He was one of life’s great helpers, for he cleaned up foul places and made them sweet.

~ Thomas W. Martin

Thomas W. Martin Accomplish Great Things Character Disease Control Humility In Greatness Leadership Characteristics Legacy Malaria Malaria Eradication Medicine Mosquitoes Public Health William Crawford Gorgas Yellow Fever Yellow Fever Eradication

But such is the nature of man that as soon as you begin to force him to do a thing, from that moment he begins to seek ways by which he can avoid doing the thing you are trying to force upon him. A man with malaria parasites in his blood is a danger to his companions. To kill all the parasites, he was then required to continue doses of quinine a week or ten days after his fever. When the convalescing men were given their daily dose of quinine they would manage to throw their tablets out of the dispensary window. The old turkey-gobbler pet of the hospital gobbled up all the tablets he could find. He became so dissipated he finally developed a species of blindness caused by too much quinine. I cannot vouch for this, but I was often twitted with this story as an illustration of how the men were treating prophylactic quinine.

~ William Crawford Gorgas

William Crawford Gorgas Anopheles Gambiae Avoidance Compulsion Cooperation Disease Control Human Nature Malaria Malaria Eradication Medicine Panama Canal Public Health Quinine Treatment Failure Turkeys Unintended Consequences

Eradicating mosquitoes is a means to an end. An uninfected mosquito is harmless to humans - just a nuisance. An infected mosquito is a danger.

~ T.k. Naliaka

T.k. Naliaka Aedes Aegypti Anopheles Gambiae Danger Disease Control Epidemics Eradication Health Malaria Malaria Eradication Means To An End Mosquito Borne Diseases Mosquitoes Public Health Yellow Fever Yellow Fever Eradication

It’s not that easy living with malaria. The reality of the high annual death toll should make that very obvious.

~ T.k. Naliaka

T.k. Naliaka Africa Anopheles Gambiae Disease Control Malaria Malaria Eradication Public Health

If people's night fears of sorcery - which negatively influences their decision to use mosquito nets - fail to impress the outsider, the brute everyday reality remains; in a number of rural African villages it is still much too common for very real hyenas to snatch people, especially children, out of their own homes as they lie sleeping at night, because of the lack of a good front door.

~ T.k. Naliaka

T.k. Naliaka Africa Behavioral Change Behaviors Constraints Hyenas Malaria Malaria Eradication Mosquito Net Predation Public Health Security Villages

Will Brazilian antigambiae measures succeed in Africa? As time goes by it will almost certainly be found that an increasing number of areas can be cleaned of gambiae and be freed of gambiae-transmitted malaria. In Africa, where the species is already widely disseminated, it would seem logical to attempt eradication by beginning in the center of the area to be cleaned and working always outward. It has been demonstrated in Brazil that species eradication of Aedes aegypti and Anopheles gambiae is feasible.

~ Fred Lowe Soper

Fred Lowe Soper Africa Brazil Disease Control Malaria Malaria Eradication Mosquitoes Public Health Yellow Fever

Shovels aren't very glamorous, but they've been liberating entire communities from malaria for the past 5,000 years.

~ T.k. Naliaka

T.k. Naliaka Africa Disease Prevention Malaria Malaria Eradication Public Health Vector Control

The case which I reported on September 26, 1901, was really the last which occurred in Havana. Of course we did not know it at the time, but this case marked the first conquest of yellow fever in an endemic center; the first application of the mosquito theory to practical sanitary work in any disease.

~ William Crawford Gorgas

William Crawford Gorgas Disease Control Great Men Heroes Malaria Eradication Medical History Medicine Mosquito Eradication Mosquitoes Public Health Sanitation Success Victories Yellow Fever Yellow Fever Eradication