Environmental Management for Vector Control. Third Report of the WHO Expert Committee on Vector Biology and Control: World Health Organization Technical Report Series No. 649. 1980. 75 pages

“Environmental management” is defined by this most recent report of the Expert Committee as being “The planning, organization, carrying out and monitoring of activities for the modification and/or manipulation of environmental factors or their interaction with man with a view to preventing or minimizing vector propagation and reducing man-vector-pathogen contact.” The term “modification” refers to permanent or long-lasting physical transformation of land, water and vegetation; whereas, “environmental manipulation” is “any planned recurrent activity aimed at producing temporary conditions unfavourable to the breeding of vectors in their habitats.” This report is not a field manual which tells the reader “How-to-eradicate-malaria (or schistosomiasis—or filariasis …)” in a cookbook fashion. It is, instead, a tightly organized, thoughtful, and surprisingly comprehensible guide to the basic principles and practical considerations of the most reasonable approach to the control of vector-borne diseases.