World malaria report 2022
- Recently the World Health Organization (WHO) has released the World Malaria Report 2022.
Key findings of the report:
- Despite the continuing impact of COVID-19, the number of malaria cases and deaths has remained stable in 2021.
- In the year 2021, about 247 million cases of malaria were reported globally and it caused 6, 19,000 deaths.
- India accounts for 79% of malaria cases under the WHO South-East Asia region. Also, 83% of the total malaria deaths occurred in India.
Malaria
- Malaria is a mosquito-borne blood disease caused by Plasmodium parasites.
- The disease is transmitted to people through the bite of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes.
- Malaria in humans is caused by five parasite species. Two of these species, P. falciparum (most prevalent in the African continent) and P. vivax (predominant outside sub-Saharan Africa) are the most threatened.
Malaria Control Efforts:
- The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified 25 countries with the potential to eliminate malaria by the year 2025 under its ‘E-2025 Initiative’.
- Efforts to eliminate malaria in India were initiated in 2015 and gained further momentum after the launch of the National Framework for Malaria Elimination (NFME) by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2016.
- NFME is in line with WHO’s Global Technical Strategy for Malaria 2016–2030 (GTS).
- The Global Technical Strategy guides WHO’s Global Malaria Program (GMP), which is responsible for coordinating WHO’s global efforts to control and eliminate malaria.
- The National Strategic Plan for Malaria Elimination (2017-22) was launched in July 2017, in which the strategy for the next five years has been set.
Source – The Hindu
