Malaria Elimination: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

In 2016, 91 countries reported a total of 216 million cases of malaria, an increase of 5 million cases over the previous year, and the estimated malaria deaths worldwide were 445,000 like in 2015. This suggests that despite a substantial reduction in the malaria burden observed since 2010, largely attributed to the scale-up of effective control measures (vector control interventions, efficacious antimalarial treatment), the rate of decline of both clinical cases and malaria deaths has stalled since 2014 and in some regions even reversed. Achieving universal access to standard control interventions, such as case management, implementation of vector control methods, seasonal malaria chemoprevention, and intermittent preventive treatment for pregnant women, remains a priority. It is essential to contain emerging drug resistance in malarial parasite and insecticide resistance in mosquito vector species. Additional new interventions to accelerate interruption of transmission are in crucial need for their rapid integration within the standard control activities. These integrated control approaches must be implemented at community level with the active involvement of the local populations to reach high coverage. Finally, political and financial supports should be maintained and even doubled to reach the 2030 targets of the WHO global technical strategy for malaria.

Horizontal Transmission of the Symbiont Microsporidia MB in Anopheles arabiensis

“…In conjunction with improvements in case detection and management, these strategies have reduced malaria cases by up to 40% between 2000 and 2015 (Bhatt et al, 2015). However, progress has plateaued and possibly reversed, with case levels remaining the same between 2014and 2016and increasing between 2016(D'Alessandro, 2018World Health Organization, 2020). It is apparent that current malaria control strategies have their limitations and there is a vital need for complementary tools (Huijben and Paaijmans, 2018).…”