Chapter 103 "The Big Killer"

Malaria, a parasitic disease caused by Plasmodium infecting the human body, is the biggest challenge facing the development of East African colonies.

The daytime temperature in the East African colonies remains around 20 degrees all year round, and in coastal areas it often remains around 30 degrees.

It is very suitable for mosquitoes to survive, and malaria is transmitted to the human body through the bite of Anopheles mosquitoes.

Therefore, the more rampant mosquitoes are in an area, the more widely malaria will spread. Especially in this era, people did not know that malaria was transmitted by mosquitoes.

It is impossible to block the transmission of malaria at its source, and malaria is widespread from tropical to subtropical regions.

In the early days of colonial development in East Africa, immigrants suffered a lot. Even under the mandatory orders of the East African government, large-scale changes were made to sanitation and living environment.

There was no effect because East Africa in the early days was just a vast wasteland with lush vegetation, especially during the rainy season, when the weather was hot and humid, mosquitoes bred rapidly.

Since the immigrants had just arrived and their numbers were still small, they could not change their living environment quickly, so many of them were infected, and quite a few were killed by malaria and other tropical diseases.

Fortunately, the immigrants who were able to survive in the Far East and cross the ocean have seen all kinds of storms.

Just like the black slaves who went to the United States through the slave trade, they were the physically strong black people selected by nature and man.

The same is true for the Far East immigrants who were able to reach East Africa alive. Of course, in order to ensure the survival rate of the immigrants, the conditions of their transport ships were much better than those of the black slaves.

Later, with the gradual increase in immigrants and the development of cities and villages in East Africa, living conditions in East Africa are also gradually improving.

Under Ernst's command, a large-scale mosquito eradication campaign was launched in East Africa, a campaign that had been going on since the beginning of the establishment of the East African colonies.

The vegetation around the settlements is burned, puddles are filled to reduce the living environment of mosquitoes, biological control is carried out on the water bodies of the colonies, and fish and frogs are farmed on a large scale to reduce the number of mosquito larvae.

As the colonial development began to take shape, the quality of life in the colonies also improved significantly, especially tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue fever that are transmitted by mosquitoes. The mosquito eradication campaign in the colonies also reduced significantly.

Moreover, the colonies forced immigrants to pay attention to hygiene, strengthen management of the colonies' water sources, strictly prohibit water pollution, not drink raw water, or simply filter and disinfect some water bodies.

Excrement is also centrally treated and a number of public toilets are built in each village to meet the needs of immigrants.

Management of wild animals that may spread diseases is even stricter. In the early days, due to food shortages, immigrants were allowed to hunt to supplement food. After food production began in the colonies, such behavior was banned.

Ernst has always believed that in previous Africa, many diseases were completely caused by Africans themselves, such as AIDS, which was caused by Africans eating local primates.

Regardless of whether this statement is correct or not, all primates in East Africa (excluding humans of course, if they are indigenous, that's another story) have suffered. As long as they are within the range of immigrant activities (including farmland and near roads), all baboons, monkeys, and gorillas that appear have been killed. They were physically eliminated by the colonists with muskets, then burned to ashes, and finally buried (remote mountains, deep forests and savannahs are not included, as they will be used as ecological protection areas in the future).

This is done to prevent some people from eating it. After all, the immigrants had experienced hunger before, and had eaten soil and tree bark. They had lived through hard times and were afraid that someone would secretly give them a snack.

Under this strict defense, living conditions in the East African colonies naturally improved greatly, and sanitary conditions were better than anywhere else at the same time, including Europe.

When subsequent immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Paraguay arrived, East Africa had already taken shape. They were all assigned to cities and villages already developed by Chinese immigrants in order to dilute the number of Chinese and prevent the formation of interest groups (such as ethnic groups) in the future.

Coupled with the increasing number of intermarriages between Chinese and white women (Armenia, Paraguay, etc.), the governments of the Middle East and Africa have gradually integrated various ethnic groups. As long as the cultural characteristics of immigrants from various countries other than German culture are eliminated in the future, population integration will be completed.

Although the living conditions in the current East African colonies have improved greatly, tropical diseases have been compressed to very low levels at the same latitude.

It is impossible to completely eliminate mosquitoes, and mosquitoes are the most important disease carriers. Therefore, in addition to continuing to strengthen sanitation activities, it is also necessary to use scientific means to repel and eliminate mosquitoes.

Again, people today have absolutely no awareness of mosquitoes as disease vectors.

It was not until the end of the 19th century that European scientists discovered that mosquitoes were the source of tropical diseases such as malaria and began to study mosquitoes.

So now, Ernst and the people in the East African colonies were the only ones in the world who believed that mosquitoes were carriers of diseases like malaria.

It’s not that Ernst is selfish and doesn’t want to announce it to the world. The problem is that he only knew it through his previous life, and he is not a researcher or authority in this field. If he tells others about it, he will probably be laughed at.

It is different in East Africa. Illiteracy is everywhere and public opinion is controlled by Ernst himself. He can just make up a few non-existent experts and let his subordinates carry out his instructions.

In the early days, people might have been reluctant, after all, everything was enforced compulsorily. But slowly, as hygiene and the environment improved, diseases like malaria really decreased, and the immigrants were happy to change (after all, no one wants to die).

The benefits of using Chinese immigrants in the early days were revealed. They were highly obedient and had little resistance. They were influenced by the culture of the Far East government and even if they had grievances, they kept them to themselves. Therefore, the health improvement campaign enforced by the East African colonial government was successfully implemented.

By the time immigrants from other countries arrived, this model had matured and became the norm and daily routine in the East African colonies. After all, the number of new immigrants was small at the beginning, so they could only follow the model. Thus, paying attention to hygiene became an iron rule in the East African colonies, and everyone had to follow the rule.

Soon, immigrants from the German region will arrive in East Africa, and good news has come from the Hechingen Consortium.

As a result of research funded by Ernst and in collaboration with German universities, pyrethrin was extracted.

As long as we follow the example of mosquito coils from the previous life and hire professionals to design machines for producing mosquito coils, we can mass-produce mosquito coils, which are the "killer" of mosquitoes in tropical regions.

This would undoubtedly improve living conditions in the East African colonies again and further reduce the spread of diseases such as malaria.

Moreover, mosquito coil production can bring new wealth to the Heixingen Group, and East Africa itself is a pyrethrum production base, which can further form a perfect industrial closed loop.

(End of this chapter)