The number of people killed by malaria dropped below half a million in 2014, the World Health Organisation’s annual malaria report stated on Wednesday.
The report said the development meant a vast progress against the mosquito-borne disease in some of the previously hardest-hit areas of sub-Saharan Africa.
It also showed deaths falling to 438,000 in 2015 – down dramatically from 839,000 in 2000 – and found a significant increase in the number of countries moving towards the elimination of malaria.
Malaria prevention measures – such as bed nets and indoor and outdoor spraying – have averted millions of deaths and saved millions of dollars in healthcare costs over the past 14 years in many African countries, the report said.
And while Africa continued to bear the highest malaria burden of all regions of the world, death rates from the disease have fallen since 2000 by 66 per cent across all age groups, and by 71 per cent among children under five.
Margaret Chan, WHO’s Director General, said the progress had been made possible “through the massive rollout” of effective prevention and treatment tools.
“In sub-Saharan Africa, more than half of the population is now sleeping under insecticide-treated mosquito nets, compared to just 2 per cent in 2000,” Chan wrote in the report.
She added: “A rapid expansion in diagnostic testing, and in the availability of anti-malarial medicines, has allowed many more people to access timely and appropriate treatment.
“Two countries, Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo, accounted for more than 35 per cent of global malaria deaths in 2015.”
However, the WHO said an estimated 663 million cases of malaria were averted in sub-Saharan Africa since 2001 following direct scale-up of three key malaria control interventions.
The interventions included bed-nets, indoor spraying and the use of malaria drugs known as artemisinin-based combination therapy, or ACTs.
Mosquito nets had the greatest impact, it said.
Pedro Alonso, the Director of WHO’s Global Malaria Programme, however, cautioned that as the global burden of malaria declined, new challenges were emerging.
“In many countries, progress is threatened by the rapid development and spread of mosquito resistance to insecticides. Drug resistance could also jeopardise recent gains in malaria control,” Alonso said.
According to the report, since 2010, 60 of the 78 countries that monitor insecticide resistance have reported mosquito resistance to at least one insecticide used in nets and indoor spraying.
“And of these, 49 reported resistance to two or more classes of insecticides,” it said.
Reuters/NAN.