WHO joins partner organizations in promoting this year’s World Malaria Day theme, Ready to Beat Malaria. This theme underscores the collective energy and commitment of the global malaria community in uniting around the common goal of a world free of malaria. It highlights the remarkable progress achieved in tackling one of humanity’s oldest diseases, while also calling out worrying trends as captured in the 2017 World malaria report:
- The global response to malaria is at a crossroads. After an unprecedented period of success in malaria control, progress has stalled.
- The current pace is insufficient to achieve the 2020 milestones of the WHO Global Technical Strategy for Malaria 2016–2030 – specifically, targets calling for a 40% reduction in malaria case incidence and death rates.
- Countries with ongoing transmission are increasingly falling into one of two categories: those moving towards elimination and those with a high burden of the disease that have reported significant increases in malaria cases.
Without urgent action, the major gains in the fight against malaria are under threat. On this World Malaria Day, WHO continues to call for greater investment and expanded coverage of proven tools that prevent, diagnose and treat malaria.
Widening the elimination net
As highlighted in the most recent World malaria report, more countries are advancing towards elimination: in 2016, 44 countries had less than 10 000 cases of malaria, compared to 37 countries in 2010.
Since 2010, 6 countries have been certified malaria-free (Armenia, Maldives, Morocco, Kyrgyzstan, Sri Lanka and Turkmenistan), and several others are inching closer to obtaining this status.
In June 2018, WHO will convene its second annual "Global forum of malaria-eliminating countries". The forum will bring together representatives of 21 countries on the path to becoming malaria-free, providing a platform to share lessons learned and outline the concrete steps needed to drive cases down to zero.
WHO at 70: 7 decades in the global malaria fight
This year’s World Malaria Day coincides with the start of a year-long series of activities to commemorate the 70th anniversary of WHO.
The Global Malaria Programme will mark this special occasion with the publication of a series of malaria-focused interviews with leaders and advocates in the global response to malaria. The interviews will be published on 25 April on the WHO website.
Videos about World Malaria Day 2018
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General
Ready to beat malaria
Dr Pedro Alonso, Director of the WHO Global Malaria Programme
Global malaria response at a crossroads