During the observation of World Malaria Day on Thursday, African health officials hailed the progress made so far in fighting the disease. In a statement released to mark the day, Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa said that the continent has reduced the malaria mortality rate by half in the past two decades.
Moeti said that two malaria vaccines approved by WHO last year will be rolled out in 19 countries in the African region this year providing new hope for hundreds of thousands of children at risk of dying from the tropical disease.
The latest World Malaria Report by the United Nations released in January indicates that major inroads have been made against the disease in Africa as a result of stepped-up funding and programming. The annual report indicated that between 2000 and 2019, malaria mortality rates among all ages in Africa halved from 28 to 14 per 100,000 population at risk.
"In 2020, the mortality rate increased to 15 per 100, 000 population at risk partly due to the disruptions in access to malaria prevention and case management caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and then decreased slightly to 14 by 2022. During the period 2000 to 2022, the percentage of total malaria deaths among children under 5 declined from 87 percent in 2000 to 76 percent in 2022," the UN report stated.
Despite the achievements made, Moeti said that Africa has reached a crossroads in controlling the disease since 20 of the most affected countries that contribute more than 85 percent of global cases and deaths are in the region. She attributed this to challenges such as extreme weather events, conflict and humanitarian crises, resource constraints, biological threats, and inequities.
"Infants and young children represent about 80 percent of the mortality, while studies show that children under the age of five from the poorest households in sub-Saharan Africa are five times more likely to be infected with malaria than those from the wealthiest households," Moeti said.
She added that the last World Malaria Report demonstrates how malaria disproportionately affects vulnerable populations such as young children, pregnant women, rural communities, and displaced populations.
In his message to the global community while marking this year's World Malaria Day, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization called for increased implementation of new and existing interventions to save lives, including WHO's pilot vaccine program in Africa.
"Everyone has the right to quality, timely, and affordable services to prevent, detect and treat malaria, yet this is not a reality for all. We have the tools to drive down malaria, a package of interventions that includes vector control, preventive medicines, testing, and treatment," Ghebreyesus said.
According to WHO, nearly 1.5 million children at high risk of illness and death from malaria in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, have now received their first dose of the first-ever malaria vaccine as part of an ongoing WHO-coordinated pilot program.
As part of the countries participating in WHO's pilot of the world's first malaria vaccine, the Kenyan government called on Kenyans to sleep under mosquito nets and advocated for behavior change as a way of safeguarding the gains made in the fight against malaria.
While marking World Malaria Day, Mary Muthoni, the principal secretary in the public health ministry said that malaria prevalence in the country decreased from about 11 percent in 2010 to 6 percent in 2020. Kenya had an estimated 5 million malaria cases and more than 12,000 deaths reported in 2022, according to the World Health Organization.
