Question: Which country has been certified malaria free recently by WHO?
a) China
b) India
c) Pakistan
d) Bangladesh
Ans: a
Context
- China was certified Malaria free by Who on 30 June 2021.
Facts
- Malaria, a completely preventable and treatable disease, is also deadly. In 2019, it cost 409,000 lives globally.
- In early 70s China reported over 24 million cases but it has reported zero indigenous malaria cases since 2017.
Which Nation can get Malaria Free status?
- The end goal for all malaria-endemic countries is certification of malaria elimination, the official recognition by WHO of a country’s malaria-free status.
- WHO grants the certification when a country has proven that the chain of indigenous malaria transmission has been interrupted nationwide for at least the past three consecutive years.
- A country must also demonstrate the capacity to prevent the re-establishment of transmission.
Status of China
- China has become 40th territory to get malaria-free status by WHO. Four other countries that gained the status recently were El Salvador in 2021, Algeria & Argentina in 2019, and Paraguay & Uzbekistan in 2018.
India and Malaria
As per World Malaria Report 2020 :
- India is the only high endemic country which has reported a decline of 17.6% in 2019 as compared to 2018.
- The Annual Parasite Incidence (API, the number of new infections per year per 1000 population) reduced by 18.4% in 2019 as compared to 2018.
- India achieved a reduction of 83.34% in malaria morbidity and 92% in malaria mortality between the year 2000 and 2019, thereby achieving Goal 6 of the Millennium Development Goals.
By kameshwar shukla
Reference : https://www.who.int/china/news/commentaries/detail/china-certified-as-malaria-free-by-who