Kunming, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Dong Xueshu, 86, a mosquito research expert at the Yunnan Provincial Institute for Parasitic Disease Control, has been dealing with mosquitoes for 70 years. From the identification and classification of mosquito species and the prevention and control of mosquito-borne infectious diseases, to the parts of mosquito specimens that cannot be seen by the naked eye, Dong Lao is familiar with it.
In 1951, at the age of 16, Dong Xueshu entered Guiyang Medical College (now Guizhou Medical University). When he was studying, because he studied infectious disease insects, mosquitoes became his research objects.
As far as studying mosquitoes is concerned, he is a complete workaholic. Drawing mosquitoes under the microscope, catching mosquitoes in the wild, teaching students to make specimens by hand... Even in the 26 years since his retirement, Dong Lao has run to the unit almost every day, and the work at hand is still around mosquitoes.
"The study of mosquitoes is mainly for the prevention and control of mosquito-borne infectious diseases, just like before going to war with the enemy, you must first figure out the details of the other side." Elder Dong said.
Dong Lao's day began by feeding mosquitoes. In order to meet the needs of daily experiments, Dong Lao has been in the habit of raising mosquitoes for many years, and he is responsible for three meals a day for mosquitoes. In the early years, Dong Lao opened a mosquito room, not far from his office.
Entering and leaving the mosquito room is particularly exquisite, and you need to go through three doors. It's opaque, and there are more than 10 mosquito cages containing larvae and adult mosquitoes. "To feed the larvae you have to sprinkle a little crushed fish feed." Elder Dong said that you can't feed too much at a time, and let them develop the habit of eating less and eating more. When the larvae grow up, just feed them some sugar water.
Sometimes, Dong Lao is too busy to eat at work, but he always worries about whether the mosquitoes in the mosquito room are hungry. After feeding the larvae, he went to the herbarium with the most mosquitoes in the unit. Tens of thousands of mosquito specimens from Yunnan are collected here.
Why did Elder Dong deal with mosquitoes in this life? The story begins with malaria control.
In 1956, when malaria broke out in Menghai County, Xishuangbanna Prefecture, dong Lao's former Yunnan Provincial Health and Epidemic Prevention Station received the task of disposal. A group of more than 10 people hurried to the scene.
At that time, due to the lack of effective treatment drugs, malaria could only be controlled through the control of its vector, Anopheles mosquitoes. In Menghai alone, there are more than 50 species of Anopheles mosquitoes, and accurately identifying the vector has become a top priority.
Some people run the villagers' bedrooms, and some people are responsible for running pigsty cowsheds. Standing in front of the pigsty cowshed, the smell of the smell is not good, but because there are many mosquitoes, Elder Dong is also willing, exposing his thighs to directly lure the enemy. Within a few minutes, many mosquitoes were attracted to his thighs, and he sucked them into a glass bottle with a suction mosquito tube, and then dissected them to determine whether his salivary glands were present with malaria parasites.
After two years, they finally figured out the seasonal extinction pattern of the distribution of local mosquito species and determined that Anopheles microcephalus was the vector mosquito species that transmitted malaria. Subsequently, targeted anti-mosquito and anti-mosquito work has been carried out one after another, and great results have been achieved. After a large number of mass prevention and treatment work, the malaria infection rate has gradually decreased.
Affected by special geographical and climatic factors, malaria was once widespread in Yunnan. Yunnan is also considered by domestic and foreign experts to be one of the most complex malaria epidemic factors, the most serious epidemic, and the most difficult areas for malaria prevention and control and elimination.
Today, through the unremitting efforts of several generations of malaria prevention people, Yunnan has made breakthroughs in malaria prevention and control. In June 2020, Yunnan Province passed the national final assessment of malaria elimination, and Yunnan, once known as the "miasma area", had no indigenous malaria cases for four consecutive years, achieving the goal of malaria elimination.
Hearing this news, Elder Dong was more excited than anyone. He sighed and said that their generation has devoted their youth to this one thing, and is looking forward to this day.
Even so, Dong Lao's work to find out the "bottom of the family" of mosquitoes is still continuing, and the scope of research has been extended to Myanmar, Laos and other countries. He said that while the body is still good, you have to continue to fight them. (End)