Another Mosquito Day (August 20) will have passed us by without tribute paid to the memory of Sir Ronald Ross, the Nobel laureate who made the epoch-making discovery of malarial transmission by the female anopheles mosquito in Hyderabad.
He also proclaimed his mosquito theory which states that in order to eradicate the disease, the vector must be eliminated. This theory was tested successfully in the Malong straits, the British empire’s key commercial outpost for rubber and tin. After it was implemented by Dr Malcolm Watson, mortality rates among plantation workers and tin labour fell dramatically. In Cuba, Colonel W C Gorgus applied the Ross method to solve the problem of malarial deaths in US barracks.
But malaria today is not what it was. Vectors and combative organisms evade drug action. As Sir Ross himself said, real action is being bypassed as entomologists are too busy with systematic aspects and pathologists are occupied with parasitic identification. The burden, therefore, rests on sanitary workers to take a holistic view of the origin and spread of the disease and take counter measures.
From Malaya to Panama, the history of world commerce would hardly be what it is without the work of Ross and his successors. Facing the present challenges of malaria can also ensure health, greater productivity and prosperity for the world.
Dr J V Ramana Rao, Member, Ross Institute, Hyderabad
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