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Six countries accounted for more than half of all malaria cases worldwide: Nigeria (25%), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (12%), Uganda (5%), and Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique and Niger (4% each). [File photo: the Independent]
Mozambique remains among the countries with the most cases of malaria reported in 2018, while Cape Verde and East Timor are “well on their way” to eradicating the disease by 2020, according to a report released in Geneva on Wednesday (December 4).
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According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) annual report on malaria, the disease was responsible for more than 400,000 deaths in 2018, 380,000 of them in Africa and 270,000 affecting children under the age of five.
The WHO estimates also indicate that, last year, 228 million new cases of malaria were recorded worldwide, 213 million of which were in Africa (212 million in 2017), with six countries accounting for almost half of the new infections.
Mozambique, with 4% of all malaria cases reported last year, is the only Portuguese-speaking country in this group, which is headed by Nigeria (25%) and includes the Democratic Republic of Congo (12%), Uganda (5%), Ivory Coast and Niger (4% each).
These countries are part of a group of 11 priority states of the WHO 2018 Initiative “From High Burden to High Impact”, which aims to accelerate progress in combating malaria in countries where the disease remains endemic.
Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, India, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Uganda are the priority countries of the campaign.
According to WHO estimates, in 2018, 155 million cases of malaria were recorded in these 11 countries, with India and Uganda seeing “considerable reductions” in the number of cases compared to the previous year – down 2.6 million and 1.5 million respectively.
Conversely, Nigeria and Ghana had “significant increases” in the number of cases, up 3.4 million and 0.5 million respectively.
Of this group, Angola comprises 3% of all malaria cases in Africa.
On a positive note, the study said that at least 10 countries out of 21 of the WHO’s E-2020 initiative are “well on their way” to achieving one of the milestones of the Global Malaria Strategy 2016-2030 for malaria eradication by 2020.
These include Lusophone East Timor and Cape Verde, as well as Algeria, Belize, Bhutan, China, El Salvador, Malaysia, Iran and Suriname.
In 2015, malaria was endemic in all these countries, but now they present virtually no new or residual cases.
East Timor leads this group of countries and reported no malaria cases in 2018. In 2006, it recorded more than 223,000 cases, which fell to 113,000 cases four years later, to 36,000 in 2011 and to just 26 in 2017.
In Cape Verde, after the 2017 epidemic of almost 500 reported cases, mostly in Praia, WHO estimates point to the eradication of indigenous cases in 2018, putting the country on the path to eradicating the disease entirely in 2020.
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