Dr. Finlay, the most profound and intense researcher of this disease, concluded there was an independent agent that transmitted the disease between an infected person and a healthy one, and he was capable of identifying the Aedes aegypti as the biological vector, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) website reported.

His victory was withheld by the United States in favor of American Walter Reed, who in 1901 chaired the 4th US Commission that came to Cuba precisely to “prove” in situ that yellow fever had a bacterial origin and therefore, Finlay was wrong.

The Cuban doctor had visited that northern country in February,1881 to present his work “The Mosquito Hypothetically Considered as the Transmitting Agent of Yellow Fever” and had been ignored.

However, the resistance to acknowledge Reed as the true discoverer of the disease was revealed when France decided to grant Finlay in 1911 the Legion of Honor official decoration and England, the Mary Kinsley Medal. Only scientists Patrick Manson, Ronald Ross, and brilliant Robert Koch, who discovered the tuberculosis bacillus, have been awarded that medal globally.

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