China declared Malaria-Free

The story: The World Health Organization (WHO) has finally declared China as “malaria-free”, the result of a seven decade-long, multi-pronged health s

China declared Malaria-Free

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• The story: The World Health Organization (WHO) has finally declared China as “malaria-free”, the result of a seven decade-long, multi-pronged health strategy that was able to entirely eliminate indigenous cases for four straight years.
• Points to note: How does a country get this certificate?

1. Certification of malaria elimination is the official recognition by WHO of a country’s malaria-free status. The WHO grants it when a country has demonstrated with rigorous, credible evidence that the chain of indigenous malaria transmission by Anopheles mosquitoes has been interrupted nationwide for at least the past three consecutive years. A country must also demonstrate the capacity to prevent the re-establishment of transmission. The final decision on awarding a malaria-free certification rests with the WHO Director-General, based on a recommendation by the independent Malaria Elimination Certification Panel (MECP).
2. Western Pacific Region: China is the first country in the WHO Western Pacific Region to be awarded a malaria-free certification in more than 3 decades. In this region the countries that have achieved this status include Australia (1981), Singapore (1982) and Brunei Darussalam (1987).

• Global status: Globally, 40 countries and territories have been granted a malaria-free certification from WHO – including, most recently, El Salvador (2021), Algeria (2019), Argentina (2019), Paraguay (2018) and Uzbekistan (2018).
• Disease burden: According to the World Malaria Report, 2020, the number of malaria cases worldwide in 2019 was around 229 million, with 4,09,000 lives lost to the mosquito-borne disease. Majority cases were reported in Africa, while India and Southeast Asia recorded a significant drop. Cases in India fell from approximately 20 million to 6 million, and India is the only high endemic country which has reported a decline of 17.6% in 2019 as compared to 2018.
• China's strategy: The efforts began in the early 1950s, a time when China was reporting millions of cases annually, starting with a multi-pronged approach of providing anti-malarial medicines while targeting mosquito breeding grounds and using insecticide spraying.

1. The 523 Project - It led to the discovery of artemisinin in the 1970s, the core compound of artemisinin-based combination therapies, the most effective antimalarial drugs available today.
2. Insecticide-treated Nets: In the 1980s, China began using insecticide-treated nets widely, distributing 2.4 million nets by 1988.
3. 1-3-7 srategy - It refers to (i) A one-day deadline to report a malaria diagnosis, (ii) Confirming a case and determining the spread by the third day, and (iii) Measures taken to stop the spread by the seventh day, along with continued surveillance in high-risk areas.

• Malaria: It is a life threatening mosquito borne blood disease caused by plasmodium parasites, predominantly found in the tropical and subtropical areas of Africa, South America as well as Asia. The parasites spread through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. After entering the human body, parasites initially multiply within the liver cells and then attack the Red Blood Cells (RBCs) resulting in their rupture.
• Indian initiatives: In India, malaria elimination efforts were initiated in 2015 and were intensified after the launch of the National Framework for Malaria Elimination (NFME) in 2016 by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. NFME is in line with WHO’s Global Technical Strategy for Malaria, 2016-2030, which guides the WHO Global Malaria Programme (GMP), 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 which laid down strategies for the following five years.

 

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