WHO urges mobilization of investment as malaria fight rages

The global fight against malaria is stalled and requires massive investment as well as political leadership, warned the UN health agency in a report released on Friday.

"The world is at a crossroads, and the historic progress made over the last decade is slowing down dramatically," said Pedro Alonso, director of the World Health Organization's malaria control program, in a statement. A press conference in Geneva.
Alonso expressed his deep concern that "we still have more than 400,000 deaths each year and 200 million cases".
"Despite tremendous progress in reducing malaria cases and deaths from malaria between 2000 and 2015, global progress has stagnated," warned the WHO report.

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Targets for 2020 to reduce the incidence and mortality by 90% by 2030 are unlikely to be met.
The WHO report predicts that even considering its "most optimistic scenarios and projections (…), we will still have 11 million cases in Africa by 2050".
He said that a "concerted and co-ordinated massive action" was needed to eradicate the disease transmitted to humans through the bites of infected mosquitoes.
Sub-Saharan Africa bears by far the largest burden of malaria, with WHO data indicating that the region accounted for 90% of all malaria-related deaths in 2018.
The UN agency said the disease struck "the most vulnerable – the very young and the poor".

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Three out of five deaths from malaria are children under five, said WHO.
The report says $ 34 billion will need to be invested by 2030 to fight malaria, including improving health care, immunization and threat surveillance.
Alonso pointed out that the current vaccine has only an efficiency of 40%.
The WHO has decried that "global funding for malaria has remained relatively stagnant since 2010".
According to the report, enhanced intervention could reduce the number of cases by two billion and the number of deaths by four million by 2030 if help could target the 29 most affected countries.

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This is only when the WHO could return to the pursuit of its original goal of a malaria-free world, which had been expressed for the first time as a result of its founding in 1948, said Alonso.
He added that there were no "biological obstacles" to prevent this.
"Unleashing the world of malaria would be one of the greatest achievements in public health," said the Director General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a statement.
"With new tools and approaches, we can make this vision a reality."

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World Health OrganizationMalaria