The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) target to “have halted and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria by 2015” has been met “convincingly”, according to the report Achieving the Malaria Millennium Development Goal Target.
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To measure the impact of dams, the team of five researchers plotted the locations of 1 268 dams in sub-Saharan African and then compared the locations with health records showing active malaria cases.
An estimated 80 percent of cases of malaria in 2015 came mostly from countries located in sub-Saharan Africa.
Amid the massive improvement in malaria death cases, the disease continues to be an acute public health concern in many areas. “So the best way to celebrate global progress in the fight against it is to recommit ourselves to reaching and treating them”, said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake.
“This war is not won until we achieve a malaria-free world”, said Kamwi, cautioning that countries which had relaxed their efforts on seeing success had soon witnessed the resurgence of the disease. “Since we can do it, we must”.
World Health Organization data showed a fall of about 60%, or 6.2 million, in the number of deaths from malaria since 2000, with the lives of some 5.9 million children under the age of five saved.
“Global malaria control is one of the great public health success stories of the past 15 years”, WHO director-general Dr Margaret Chan said.
Fifteen years ago, an estimated 262 million malaria cases killed almost 840 000 people.
“Eliminating malaria on a global scale is possible – but only if we overcome these barriers and accelerate progress”, Lake and Chan said in a joint statement. Among the global regions that are exhibiting the swiftest decline of malaria cases include Central Asia, Eastern Asia and the Caucasus.
It added, “About 3.2 billion people – nearly half of the world’s population – are at risk of malaria”.
Malaria cases, meanwhile, decreased by 37% in 15 years.
Highlighting the steps that helped curb infection rates, the report said that about one billion insecticide-treated nets had been distributed in Africa since 2000.
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Some 68 per cent of malaria cases prevented since 2000 were stopped by these bednets, while anti-malarial drugs called Artemisinin-based combination therapies and indoor spraying accounted for 22 per cent and 10 per cent of cases prevented, according to the study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
