To control the current outbreak we must look to the past and learn its lessons.

With the current dengue outbreak, many have asked what can be done? The question has actually been answered more than 100 years ago albeit in a fashion considered crude today.  What happened was that we have failed to integrate the lessons learnt from the building of the Panama Canal as taught by Dr William Gorgas.
   The Panama Canal took 34 years to build. During that time almost 37 thousand people died (this works out to 1100 persons a year) while building the canal mainly from vector-borne diseases such as malaria and yellow fever (which is a cousin of dengue, both being flaviviruses). While John Frank Stevens was the gentleman who decided on the lock-based canal that enabled the canal to be built, it was Dr William Gorgas' efforts to control malaria and yellow fever that enabled the workers to fulfil their tasks. Till today more than 100 years later the Panama Canal area is still an area free from malaria and yellow fever.
   What is there left to do for us but to learn the lessons of the past.