Elimination of Malaria by 2030 needs greater participation
- Posted By
10Pointer
- Categories
Polity & Governance
- Published
27th Apr, 2022
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Context
On the World Malaria Day (25th April), the government has called for greater community participation and use of technology to eliminate the vector-borne disease by 2030.
India’s progress towards malaria elimination
- India has a great history of malaria control.
- The highest incidence of malaria occurred in the 1950s, with an estimated 75 million cases with 0.8 million deaths per year.
- The launch of National Malaria Control Programme in 1953 and the National Malaria Eradication Programme in 1958 made it possible to bring down malaria cases to 100,000 with no reported deaths by 1961. This is no doubt a great achievement has been made so far.
- The Government of India has released a National Strategic Plan (NSP) for malaria eradication for the year 2017-2022, with a target of eradication by 2030.
- This has led to a shift in focus from malaria “control” to “elimination”.
- The plan provides a roadmap to achieve the goal of eliminating malaria in 571 of India’s 678 districts by 2022.
- India is a signatory to National Framework for Malaria Elimination (NFME) 2016-2030 aiming for malaria elimination by 2030.
About Malaria
- Malaria is caused by a parasite that is usually carried by the deposition of parasitic sporozoites in the skin of humans by a certain type of mosquito, the female Anopheles.
- Malaria is an acute febrile disease.
- In a non-immune person, symptoms usually appear 10-15 days after being bitten by an infected mosquito.
- The first symptoms – fever, headache, and chills – may be mild and difficult to recognize as malaria.
- o If left untreated within 24 hours, falciparum malaria can turn into a serious illness, often leading to death.
- Children with severe malaria often develop one or more of the following symptoms: severe anemia, respiratory distress about metabolic acidosis, or cerebral malaria.
- In adults, multi-organ failure is also frequent.
- In malaria-endemic areas, people may develop partial immunity, leading to asymptomatic infection.
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Malaria-free certification by WHO
- Since 1900, 127 countries have registered malaria elimination.
- In 2021, two countries El Salvador on February 25 and China on June 29 were declared malaria-free by the WHO.
- Other recent countries to join the malaria-free club are Argentina (2019), Paraguay (2018), and Uzbekistan (2018).
RTS,S
- The RTS,S — also known as Mosquirix — is the world’s first WHO-approved vaccine against the type of malaria caused by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite.
- The vaccine is based on a protein expressed on the surface of sporozoite, called circumsporozoite protein (CSP).
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