Born on August 20
World Mosquito Day
The day a mosquito gave up its secret.
Next: August 20, 2027
Where it comes from
World Mosquito Day marks 20 August 1897, when Ronald Ross, a British doctor in the Indian Medical Service, found the malaria parasite in an Anopheles mosquito at Secunderabad in India, the proof that mosquitoes carry the disease.
How it's celebrated
The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, which keeps Ross's notebooks and microscope, marks the day each year, a custom that goes back to a party held for Ross at the Ross Institute in London on 20 August 1931, his dog Binkie in pride of place.
Did you know
Ross was born in Almora, in the Indian Himalayas, and loved poetry and music as well as mathematics, which he used to model how malaria spreads.
Read the full story of World Mosquito Day
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