World Malaria Report 2022: Malaria cases, deaths begin stabilizing after COVID disruption: WHO

Source: The post is based on the article “Malaria cases, deaths begin stabilizing after COVID disruption: WHO” published in Down To Earth on 13th December 2022

What is the News?

The World Health Organization(WHO) has released the World Malaria Report 2022.

What are the key highlights from the report?

Deaths due to Malaria: Despite disruptions to prevention, diagnostic and treatment services during the pandemic, countries around the world have largely held the line against further setbacks to malaria control.

– There were an estimated 6.19 lakh malaria deaths globally in 2021 compared to 6.25 lakh in the first year of the pandemic in 2020. In 2019, before the pandemic struck, the number of deaths stood at 5.68 lakh. 

Malaria cases: Malaria cases continued to rise between 2020 and 2021, but at a slower rate than in the period 2019 to 2020. The global tally of malaria cases reached 247 million in 2021, compared to 245 million in 2020 and 232 million in 2019. 

High-Burden Malaria Countries: Among the 11 high-burden countries, five — the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, India, Niger and the United Republic of Tanzania — recorded a decline in deaths.

– But these countries continued to contribute heavily to the global disease burden.

Hurdles against malaria control: Funding to deploy new tools to help defeat malaria, impeding progress due to mutating parasites which can evade rapid diagnostic tests, increasing drug resistance and the invasion of an urban-adapted mosquito in Africa which is resistant to most insecticides used in this geography.

Progress on ending malaria: The WHO Global technical strategy for malaria 2016–2030 aims to reduce malaria case incidence and mortality rates by at least 40% by 2020, at least 75% by 2025 and at least 90% by 2030 against a 2015 baseline.

– In 2021, the case incidence was 48 per cent off track — at 59 cases per 1,000 population at risk, compared to a target of 31. Death incidence is also 48% off track — 14.8 in 2021 against a target of 7.8. If these trends continue, the world will be 88% off target in its fight against malaria.