It’s been 10 years, but Paulo Gomes still vividly remembers the terror he felt that his wife, Lucirene, would never return from the hospital, that she would die instead of the dengue she contracted from a mosquito bite, her body racked with fever and excruciating pain.
She did come home, after 15 days, and recovered fully after several more months. But the experience forever changed how Mr. Gomes thought about mosquitoes.
Mr. Gomes, now 65, is an eager participant in an aggressive campaign by Belém, the northern Brazilian city where he lives on the edge of a rain forest, to reduce mosquitoes and the health dangers they bring.
Municipal workers have counseled him that mosquitoes breed in standing water and thrive in musty, moist spaces. He fills the swimming pool in the backyard every Friday for his grandchildren who live nearby, but drains it religiously every Sunday after they leave.
