Context: Recently, the Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare has chaired the “Reaching Zero” forum on malaria elimination to celebrate World Malaria Day.

World Malaria Day

• The 25th April is designated as the ‘World Malaria Day’.
• The 2021 theme of World Malaria Day is “Reaching the Zero Malaria target”.
• It provides inspiration to the global community and all affected countries that are working to root out malaria and improve the health and livelihood of their people.

Malaria

• It is caused by protozoan parasites (Plasmodium species).
• It is transmitted from one human to another by the bite of infected Anopheles mosquitoes.
• The malaria parasite Plasmodium has a complex, multistage life cycle occurring within two living beings, the vector Anopheles mosquitoes and the vertebrate hosts.

Key Highlights

• India has been able to achieve remarkable success in reducing the malaria burden in terms of cases by 84.5% and deaths by 83.6%.
• WHO has attributed India’s success to rejuvenated political commitment, strengthened technical leadership which focused on prioritizing the vector control measures and increased domestic funding.
• In February 2021, El Salvador became the first country in Central America to be certified malaria-free by World Health Organisation (WHO).
• Between 2000 and 2019, the number of countries with fewer than 100 indigenous malaria cases increased from 6 to 27.
• The Prime Minister of India has been among the 18 Global leaders who endorsed the Malaria Elimination roadmap of Asia Pacific Leaders Malaria Alliance at the East Asia Summit in 2015.
• It was then that the alliance leadership set the goal of ensuring that the Region becomes free of malaria by 2030.
• In 2020, as many as 116 districts in the India had reported zero malaria cases.

What is Reaching Zero Forum on Malaria Elimination?

• It is a virtual forum jointly launched by World Health Organisation (WHO) and RBM Partners.
• It is focused on the World Malaria Day elimination theme of “Reaching the Zero Malaria target”.
• The Country leaders, frontline and community health workers, and global partners will come together to discuss their malaria elimination journeys and inspire others to reach the target of zero malaria.

Initiatives in India to eliminate malaria

• Malaria Mukt Abhiyan in the Bastar Region of Chhattisgarh was successfully carried out wherein 3.78 million people were screened for malaria.

National Framework for Malaria Elimination (NFME) 2016-2030: It outlines India’s strategy for elimination of the disease by 2030. The objectives of the national framework are:

• Eliminate malaria from all low (Category 1) and moderate (Category 2) endemic states/UTs (26) by 2022;
• Reduce incidence of malaria to less than 1 case per 1000 population in all States/UTs and the districts and malaria elimination in 31 states/UTs by 2024;
• Interrupt indigenous transmission of malaria in all States/ UTs (Category 3) by 2027;
• Prevent re-establishment of local transmission of malaria in areas where it has been eliminated and to maintain malaria-free status of the country by 2030.

Malaria Elimination Research Alliance (MERA) India: It aims to identify, articulate, prioritise and respond to the research needs of the country in a coordinated and combinatorial way to eliminate malaria from India by 2030.

• It was launched by the ICMR Director General in 2019.
• It is a conglomeration of National and International partners like World Health Organization (WHO), National Vector Borne Diseases Control Program (NVBDCP), and medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV).

WHO initiatives for Malaria Elimination

E2020 initiative: In 2017, WHO launched the E-2020 initiative to support a group of countries to achieve zero indigenous cases of malaria by 2020.

• 21 countries across five regions were identified as having the potential to reach the milestone of eliminating malaria.
• Of the 21 countries, eight reported zero cases of malaria, as of April 2021 which included, Algeria, Belize, Cabo Verde, China, El Salvador, Iran, Malaysia, and Paraguay.

E2025 initiative: It aims to halt transmission of the disease in 25 countries by 2025 co-sponsored by the RBM Partnership to End Malaria.

• The set of countries includes all E-2020 member countries that did not yet receive malaria-free certification, along with eight new countries.
• Guatemala, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Panama, Sao Tome and Principe, Vanuatu, Thailand, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.