News: Urban malaria driven by invasive Anopheles stephensi threatens India’s malaria elimination targets, according to the Health Ministry’s Malaria Elimination Technical Report 2025.
About Anopheles Stephensi
- Anopheles stephensi is a significant mosquito species now recognised as an invasive threat because it thrives in urban environments.
- Transmits: The species efficiently transmits Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax, creating challenges for existing malaria control efforts.
- Urban Adaptability: It is a major driver of “urban malaria” due to its ability to breed in artificial containers such as overhead tanks, construction sites, and discarded tires.
- Biting Patterns: It is typically endophagic (feeds indoors) and endophilic (rests indoors).
- In urban areas, it shows a greater preference for human blood.
- Resilience: The species is known for its high salinity tolerance and ability to survive extreme temperatures, allowing it to persist year-round.
- Distribution: Earlier confined to parts of South Asia and the Arabian Peninsula, it has since spread to several countries in Africa and Asia, prompting global concern.
- Threat: WHO considers its spread a major potential threat and has launched an initiative against its spread in Africa.
About Malaria in India
- Malaria: It is a disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes.
- There are five kinds of malarial parasites — Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax (the commonest one), Plasmodium malariae, Plasmodium ovale, and Plasmodium knowlesi.
- India aims to eliminate malaria by 2030, with an intermediate goal of achieving zero indigenous cases by 2027, in line with WHO strategy.
- India has reduced malaria cases from 11.7 lakh in 2015 to about 2.27 lakh in 2024, with deaths declining by 78%.
- By 2024, 92 per cent of districts reported an annual parasite incidence below one, indicating low transmission levels.
- Limited high-burden pockets: Malaria now persists mainly in high-burden pockets, including districts in Odisha, Tripura, and Mizoram, shaped by local ecological conditions and health-system access.
About Malaria Elimination Technical Report 2025
- The report was released by the Health Ministry.
- It was compiled by the ICMR–National Institute of Malaria Research and the National Centre for Vector Borne Disease Control.
- The report highlights major declines in malaria cases and deaths and India’s transition to the pre-elimination phase.
