Special postal cover on malaria discoverer, Sir Ronald Ross, issued

Hyderabad, Aug 20 : A special postal cover was released on Friday in commemoration of the discovery of the malarial parasite by Sir Ronald Ross in Hyderabad.The Sir Ronald Ross Institute of Parasitology, Osmania University, in association with the Postal Department, released the postal cover on the World Mosquito Day at an event held at the institute premises in Begumpet.

Telangana Animal Husbandry Minister T.Srinivas Yadav released the commemorative postal cover in the presence of Osmania University Vice Chancellor D.Ravinder and Chief Postmaster General of Telangana circle, S.Rajendra Kumar.While working as medical officer and posted to the regiment stationed in Secunderabad, Ross had discovered the presence of plasmodium, the malarial parasite in female anopheles mosquito, in 1897.

It was on August 20, 1897 that he announced at this historic building in Begumpet that the malaria is transmitted from an affected person to a healthy person through the bite of the female anopheles mosquito.Born in Almora, in todays Uttarakhand in 1857, he had served as a medical officer between 1895 and 1897 and worked on malaria while working in then Madras, Calcutta, Mysore, Bangalore and Hyderabad between 1881 and 1899.

He was awarded Nobel Prize in 1902 for his outstanding work in demonstrating the life-cycle of the parasites of malaria in mosquitoes.In 1955, the Department of Zoology, Osmania University acquired the building from the then Deccan Airlines and established the Malaria Research Institute there.

However, for some unknown reasons, this building went again into the custody of Airport Authority of India, but in 1979, the Ross Memorial Society, Osmania University took back its possession.During the centenary celebrations in 1997, the entire building was refurbished to its original form with the help of the British Council and the Ross Memorial Museum established with portraits, an illustrative biography of Ross, and his discovery of malaria transmission.

The Archaeological Survey of India declared the institute building as a protected monument.In 2008, the government of (then unified) Andhra Pradesh had decided to promote the institute as a tourist destination.