Countries like Maldives, Singapore and Sri lanka have been certified malaria-free — a stunning achievement — but India is among nine countries in South East Asia which continues to reel under the mosquitoes-borne disease.
With the highest malaria burden in the Asia Pacific region, with more than one billion people at risk of infection, India India has launched national framework for malaria elimination in 2016 with a vision of malaria free country by 2027 and elimination by 2030.
According to the WHO, India has nearly halved the number of reported malaria cases between 2000 and 2014, from 2 million to 1.1 million.
However, under-reporting of confirmed cases makes it challenging to accurately estimate the true burden and populations at risk.
Multiple independent reports suggest that actual malaria cases could be between nine and 50 times greater than those reported by India’s National Vector Borne Disease Program (NVBDCP), and malaria-related deaths could be 13 times higher, as per the Malaria Elimination Group, an independent international advisory group convened by the Global Health Group at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
On the eve of World Malaria Day, Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia, said that by controlling the mosquitoes that transmit malaria (and our exposure to them) we can significantly diminish malaria transmission and hence disease burden.
“Two highly effective ways to do this is by ensuring affected communities have access to long-lasting insecticidal mosquito nets, and by carrying out indoor residual spraying. In 2015 alone indoor residual spraying was estimated to protect 106 million people worldwide, including upwards of 41 million in India,” she added.
This year, WHO’s theme for World Malaria Day is ‘End Malaria for Good’.
To reach pre-elimination, all states in India will need to have annual parasite incidence (API) of less than 1 per 1000 and all districts within the state will also need to be less than 1. Currently, 74 per cent of India’s more than 650 districts have achieved an API of less than 1. Although 90 per cent of the country’s population is at the risk of Malaria, the vector is concentrated in 16 States.