Arnoldo Gabaldón Carrillo (1 March 1909 in Trujillo, Trujillo State – 1 September 1990 in Caracas) was a physician, researcher and Venezuelan politician. He is recognized for his activism against malaria. His campaign against the disease reduced the number of cases in Venezuela to almost zero during the 1950s, giving place to more exploitable territory and population growth.
Biography
Arnoldo Gabaldón was born on 1 March 1909, in the Andean city of Trujillo in Venezuela, son of Joaquin Gabaldón and Virginia Carrillo Márquez. He graduated from the undergraduate in philosophy in 1928 and in 1930 earned a doctorate in medical sciences at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. Then he completed a specialty at the Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases in Hamburg in Hamburg (Germany), subsequently traveling to the United States in 1935 as a fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation to obtain a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in hygiene sciences with a speciality in protozoology. Back in Venezuela he was appointed to head the newly created Special Directorate of Malariology within the Ministry of Health and Welfare, a position he held until 1950.
Under the direction of Gabaldón, Venezuela became the first state which organized a nationwide campaign against malaria using DDT, which led to the first eradication of the disease in a large tropical area.
Gabaldón gained such fame in his country that in 1951 he was one of the candidates to replace the recently assassinated President of the Republic, Carlos Delgado Chalbaud. He continued to advise the General Directorate of Malariology until his retirement in 1973.
Health and welfare
In 1936 the Minister of Health and Welfare, Santos Dominici appointed Gabaldón director of Malariology and Alberto J. Fernandez, deputy director of the School of Malariology Experts malariologists. Once the headquarters of the National Division of Malaria in Maracay was established, Gabaldón carefully selected collaborators and as a team faced the serious problem of malaria in the country, by adopting a strategy that broke with the traditional schemes of the time, and it is still in full force, diligently preparing the staff and with defined methodologies according to the needs, accompanying the process of epidemiological research and disease control with antibacterial and antiparasitic measures. His strategy for antimalarial effort, was based on practical experiences of sanitation and supply of antimalarial drugs, with deep knowledge of national geopolitics and contact with people, becoming a national project, which immediately started to give positive results, so that high rates of morbidity and mortality malaria that decimated the country in the era of the 1930s, by 1944 had decreased significantly and its control was seen as possible.
This initial program in 1945 was followed by a phase of malaria eradication, through a national campaign by application of the synthetic insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane better known as (DDT). The controversial use of DDT in Venezuela was carried out in a controlled manner through the work of the Italian-Venezuelan chemical Ettore Mazzarri, founder of the Chemical Laboratory of Malaria in 1948. The results were immediate: by 1950 the death rate from malaria in the country had been reduced to 9 per 100,000 inhabitants (from a Latin American country high of 164 per 100,000) and was eradicated in an area of 132 000 km2. In 1955, 10 years after the program started the rate was lowered to 1 per 100 000 population and the eradicated area had increased to 305,414 km2. Moron, an area that had the highest rates of mortality from malaria, had spent three years with no deaths by malaria. Thereafter the great population explosion in Venezuela occurred with evident achievements and successes which were recognized nationally and internationally.
He also discovered new species of malarial parasites and devoted himself to studying the mosquito Anopheles nuneztovari, action that catalyzed the recognition of educational needs and preparing managerial staff of the Ministry of Health, through the creation of the school that bears his name in Maracay, a deep and additional contribution.
Between 1959 and 1964 President Rómulo Betancourt appointed him Minister of Health and Welfare and Gabaldón developed a management program influenced by his professional background grounded in medical and environmental sanitation activities throughout the country.