Anti-Malaria Campaign Commemorative Plaque

At the beginning of the 1900s malaria was killing about two thousand people per year in Sardinia, so between 1948 and 1950 the "Sardinian Project" took place, the great campaign against the causes of the endemic plague of malaria conducted by ERLAAS (Ente regionale della lotta antianofelica = Regional Institution for the anti-anophelic fight) and funded among others by the Rockefeller Foundation (supervision and scientific direction), UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) and ECA (Economic Cooperation Administration). The project was carried out in two phases: in the first the objective was to destroy adult mosquitoes and all houses, public buildings, schools, farmhouses and barns, bridges, monuments, nuraghi, domus de janas, mining wells and quarries, military installations and caves were reclaimed with DDT.

In the second phase, thousands of workers and technicians were employed in the search for the larvae of Anopheles Labranchiae, which, with planes and teams of ground exterminators, sprayed streams and marshes and built reclamation channels. The ERLAAS army was made up of 32,000 men, 200 vehicles and 4 planes.

At the "Alberto Riva Villasanta" Educational Institution, in Garibaldi Square, there still is a monument in memory of the work and sacrifice of these people.