Arnoldo Gabaldón's independent path for malaria control and public health in the tropics: a lost "paradigm" for WHO

Arnoldo Gabaldón played a critical role in the early promotion of the belief that malaria could be eradicated in tropical countries. Under his leadership Venezuela was able to achieve dramatic progress, but nation-wide eradication was not realized. The path that Venezuela followed for malaria differed significantly from the WHO eradication strategy. Also, Gabaldón's public health approach, within which his malaria programme developed, was at odds with WHO's Basic Health Services (BHS) approach. The paper describes these differences and shows that approaches, similar to those subsequently pursued by Gabaldón, had been promoted in the early years of WHO's history but were quickly subsumed by that of BHS which came into force in 1953 and lasted until 1973. The paper concludes that, by remaining loyal to the global eradication of malaria, malariologists isolated themselves and lost much of their influence on the development of WHO public health policies and approaches.