China beats malaria, eliminating disease after decades of effort
- World Health Organization says hard-earned success shows the world that a malaria-free future is a viable goal
- The country is still at risk from imported cases, with prevention measures and education focused on southwestern borders
Beijing submitted a certification request to the agency in November, after four years of recording zero local cases. In May, members of the Malaria Elimination Certification Panel – an independent WHO advisory body – travelled to China and verified it was free of the disease and had the appropriate resources to prevent retransmission.
“Today we congratulate the people of China on ridding the country of malaria,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday.
“Their success was hard-earned and came only after decades of targeted and sustained action. With this announcement, China joins the growing number of countries that are showing the world that a malaria-free future is a viable goal.”
China joins 39 other countries and territories that have received the certification, including Algeria, Uzbekistan, Argentina, and El Salvador. It is the fourth country in the WHO’s Western Pacific region – and the first in more than 30 years, after Brunei in 1987 – to be declared malaria-free.
Before 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was established, the country was reporting more than 30 million cases of malaria and 300,000 associated deaths each year, with an estimated 90 per cent of the population at risk from the mosquito-borne disease.
Since then, China has doubled down on its efforts to control the disease, providing antimalarial treatments to those at risk and increasing the use of insecticides to reduce mosquito breeding grounds.
