Hyderabad, August 22: Osmania University Vice Chancellor, T Tirupati Rao, on Thursday inaugurated a two-day symposium on the implications of climate change on mosquito-borne diseases in commemoration with World Mosquito Day. And the venue? Quite naturally, the Ronald Ross Institute of Parasitology in Begumpet. Professor Tirupati Rao, in his inauguration address said that the symposium was of seminal significance.
“Climatic conditions play an important role in the distribution, degree of endemicity and spread of diseases in an area,” he said. He added that, “While climate can affect the incidence of malaria it is increasing clear that man’s economic activities and malaria control strategies play a larger role in the incidence of the disease.” Dr A K Chary, a consulting surgeon with Apollo Hospital, in a message said that climate change has become an important issue and even the recently concluded G8 summit brought the issue to the fore.
“The worldwide mosquito menace has been a major threat to health and has hampered socio-economic development,” he said. Halth researchers from across India are going to be presenting papers on different aspects of mosquito borne diseases. There is even a paper about Ronald Ross titled ‘Discovering Sir Ronald Ross, The Man’. Ronald Ross was born in India in 1857 and spent most of his life here. He performed experiments on the malaria transmission cycle at the Ronald Ross Institute in Hyderabad and demonstrated that the Anopheles mosquito transmits Malaria. For this discovery he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1902, becoming the first person from Asia to win the prize.
In commemoration of this, August 20 is observed as World Mosquito Day. Other papers being presented at the symposium will deal with subjects as diverse as mosquito DNA and case studies of malaria in Arunachal Pradesh to impact of climate change in spreading malaria.
–Agencies