Critical Issue

Critical Issue

The insect, Aedes aegypti, more commonly known as the yellow fever mosquito, caused a large challenge during the building of the Panama Canal from 1881 to 1889 The Panama Canal project was created by the French to open up easily accessed trade routes from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans (Worthington and Cho 2019). Yellow fever mosquitos heavily affected the building of this large global project due to diseases that they carried. These diseases included malaria and yellow fever, which took the lives of 22,000 Panama Canal workers. Due to the loss of workers and millions of dollars in debts, the French had to inevitably give up the project due to the plagues of disease they were experiencing. This caused the country of France to go bankrupt and they experienced judgment due to their withdrawal from this globally significant project. The way the French government and healthcare system handled the public health crisis and disease epidemics was disastrous. Hospital workers left windows open and brought in plants which drew the mosquitos in and allowed them to breed within the hospital. The lack of understanding regarding these insects and the dismissal of research that was needed to solve these issues led to a public health crisis which ultimately left the French with a high mortality rate and no money. 

When the project was abandoned by the French, the Americans took the opportunity to complete this world renowned project. Luckily, American scientists were working on finding out what was causing this disease. US army physician Major Walter Reed who finally demonstrated unequivocally that Aedes aegypti was the vector of the virus (Manning 2016). The female mosquito is the vector of yellow fever because when it bites and sucks the blood of an infected organism, it is not affected by the disease, but can carry it to another organism. The female mosquito spreads the disease by sucking the blood from a human or animal, and replacing the blood meal with her saliva that is infected with the disease. With these important discoveries, the US was able to find solutions to avoid their workers getting sick. This was a challenge because the mosquitos are hard to control. They breed rapidly and in standing water, which was apparent during the building of the Panama Canal. The workers also did not understand the precautions needed to protect themselves from bites and infected patients were in areas where mosquitos could access them, spreading the disease quickly and in large numbers. Many different tactics were used to try and defend the Panama Canal from the disease carriers. These included using insecticides within the jungle to eradicate the mosquitoes, and spraying insecticides within the houses and buildings where workers resided (Manning 2016). The yellow fever mosquito and the diseases it carried caused large delays and a failure of this global project originally. Due to research and an understanding of this insect and the importance of public health, the Panama Canal was able to be successfully completed.