Fifty Years of Malaria Control in the Panama Area

Abstract

Summary The efforts to control malaria in the vicinity of the Panama Canal during a half century were progressively more successful as new methods developed. Sanitary engineering works of a permanent type have controlled mosquito breeding in the vicinity of communities in the Canal Zone. A battery of chemicals are in use for destroying mosquitoes in all phases of their life cycle and new drugs for effectively attacking the malaria parasite in the human carrier and patient are now at our disposal. Malaria has been reduced to an uncommon disease in the Canal Zone and urban communities of the Republic of Panama enjoy a considerable degree of freedom from infection, but rural communities and hamlets continue to lose much of their economic production potential due to malaria. Aggressive antimalaria programs temporarily reduce the disease but eradication has not been achieved in Panama. Temporary inactivity of malaria in a community may delude the inhabitants but the disease is unlikely to remain quiescent for long. Continuing and unremittent application of control measures by the individual and the community aimed at reducing the vector and treating the carriers is the solution to this problem in the Panama area. Once initiated, the control should be integrated into the community functions and become a permanent part of the community routine.