DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE
PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE
SCONSCIER PROEBODONOARD ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SERVICE
Insect and Rodent Control Branch
Room 313, 3384 Peachtree Road, N.E., Atlanta, Georgia 30326

 

ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL ADMINISTRATION

February 26, 1970

Professor Joshua Lederberg

Department of Genetics

School of Medicine, Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305

Dear Professor Lederberg:

Your letter of February 16, 1970, has been sent to me for reply. The
initial decision to inaugurate an Aedes aegypti eradication program
in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands following
the dengue outbreak in the Caribbean in 1963 was based primarily on
an international commitment of this country to do its share in the
hemispheric program to eradicate the yellow fever mosquito as ex-
plained in several of the accompanying reprints.

The decision to terminate the program was based on budgetary considera-
tions as explained in the 2 page Aedes aegypti mosquito eradication
program Curtailment Report dated September 26, 1968.

You may be interested in reading more about the international ramifica-
tions of the program, including the Senegal epidemic of 1965, in two

WHO Bulletins: No. 36(1) pp 1-180, 1967 and No. 36(4) pp 519-702, 1967,
and the May 1969 issue of "American Journal of Tropical Medicine and
Hygiene." iar Lo,

With regard to the absence of yellow fever in Asia, Dr. Fred Soper, one
of the world's authorities on yellow fever, has felt that the absence

of this disease in East Africa was one of the cardinal reasons it was
never carried by sailing boats to southeast Asia with its hundreds of
millions of susceptible people and an abundance of two good mosquito
vectors--Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus whereas the disease was
repeatedly introduced into the Americas from West Africa where it is
endemic. Dr. Soper has pointed out that in these days of jet airplanes,
it may be only a matter of time until either an infected mosquito or a
person with yellow fever virus circulating in his blood is carried to
some southeast Asia country to start an epidemic of yellow fever there.
These are the reasons for the strict requirement that travelers to south-
east Asia from yellow fever countries in Africa or the Americas must have

a valid yellow fever vaccination and for the current interest in airplane
disinsection. We appreciate your interest in this program.

Sincerely yourss-)

f a ' a ee -
/ SOE 4g, K 2 of
x Harry D. Pratt, Ph.D.
Chief, Insect and Rodent Control Branch