Communities worldwide commemorate World Malaria Day under the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on April 25. World Malaria Day was instituted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) member states during the World Health Assembly of 2007.
The theme for 2015 is: ‘Invest in the future. Defeat malaria.’ It is an occasion to highlight the need for continued outlay and sustained political commitment for malaria prevention and control. With more than half of the world’s population at risk of infection, malaria presents an alarming threat to global development.
Each year, malaria costs the African continent an estimated minimum of $12 billion in lost productivity, and in some high-burden countries it can account for as much as 40 per cent of the public health expenditure.
In 2013, malaria was responsible for an estimated 5,84,000 deaths world-wide, killing an estimated 4,53,000 children aged less than five years. Though there is a remarkable progress in the fight against malaria, still the efforts remains flimsy.
The United Nations-supported ‘Roll Back Malaria Partnership’ confirmed that 64 out of 97 countries are now on the track to meet the MDG.
According to the latest report by the WHO, malaria mortality rates have decreased by 47 per cent world-wide and 54 per cent in Africa alone since 2000. Since 2001, it is estimated that more than 4 million malaria-related deaths have been averted, about 97 per cent of which have been children under five.
Efforts to prevent malaria in pregnancy have averted nearly 95,000 newborn deaths between 2009 and 2012. These numbers represent an entire generation given the chance to live healthy lives and grow into strong, contributing members of their societies.
According to the World Malaria Report 2014, as many as 111 crore Indians are at risk of getting infected with malaria, of which 28 crore have been found to be at the highest risk. India has 12.8 crore suspected malaria cases.
However, India recorded 8.81 lakh confirmed cases of the world’s most dangerous vector borne disease. This means that only 7 per cent of malaria cases are being confirmed.
The country also faces the most deadly threat of the malaria strain becoming resistant to the most advanced drugs available till date, thanks to unregulated selling of banned malaria therapies.
Despite a ban by the WHO, shockingly, as of December 2014, the WHO confirmed that 24 pharmaceutical companies continued to market oral Artemisinin Monotherapies, half of them sited in India.
Declining trend
About 1.4 billion people are at some risk of malaria in the 10 malaria-endemic countries in South East Asia, with 352 million at high risk.
The number of confirmed malaria cases reported in the region decreased from 2.9 to 1.5 million between 2000 and 2013. Three countries accounted for 96 per cent of cases in 2013: India (58 per cent), Myanmar (22 per cent) and Indonesia (16 per cent).
The WHO says two countries — India and Thailand - are on track to achieve a decrease of 50 to 75 per cent in case incidence by 2015. One of the reasons for such a decline in India is the increased testing of suspected malaria cases by microscopy.
The global total of 197 million microscopic examinations performed was dominated by India, which accounted for over 120 million slide examinations in 2013.
Globally, 3.2 billion people in 97 countries are at risk of being infected with malaria. In 2013, there were an estimated 198 million malaria cases world-wide.
Despite a price tag of $100 billion required to eliminate the mosquito-borne disease by 2030, the interventions help to advance broader development efforts.
Considering that more than half a million lives are still lost to this preventable disease each year; on the World Malaria Day 2015, the WHO is calling for a high-level commitment to the vision of a world free of malaria.
Four countries have been certified free of malaria in the last decade and the post-2015 strategy sets the goal of eliminating the disease from a further 35 countries by 2030.
(The writer teachers at the Christ University, Bengaluru)