Malaria: History, discovery of transmission

The transmission of malaria had for long been a mystery. One of the researchers was the Briton Sir Ronald Ross. He left for India with a personal mission to prove transmission via insects. In 1897, after three years of hard work, he demonstrated the parasites in mosquitoes which had bitten patients. Later he also demonstrated the transmission of avian malaria via mosquitoes (Plasmodium relictum transmitted from one sparrow to another via Culex fatigans). He was able to describe the complete development of the parasite in the mosquito and also demonstrated that transmission took place via the bite of the mosquito (and not via the presence of dead mosquitoes in drinking water, as his mentor Patrick Manson had initially thought). For this he received the Nobel prize in 1902. Subsequently the Italian Giovanni Battista Grassi and Patrick Manson confirmed that human malaria could be transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes by carrying out extensive experiments in Italy and by allowing Manson’s own son to be bitten by Anopheles mosquitoes which had fed on a patient with P. vivax malaria.

Category: Medicine Notes