MAL Country profiles

Global Malaria Country profiles 2011 [Download profiles]

Malaria continues to be a major public health problem in the World Health Organization African Region. It is estimated that 960,000 deaths from malaria occurs annually in this Region, which represents 90% of the malaria deaths reported worldwide. A large proportion of the victims are children under the age of five years. The burden of this disease translates into a significant demand for health care services, particularly in the resource poor settings of most African countries.

Globally, there have been concerted efforts to intensify malaria prevention and control activities in the continent towards the achievement of the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) goal of halving the malaria burden by the year 2010. The Summit of Heads of State and Government of Africa held in Abuja, Nigeria in 2000, resolved to initiate appropriate and sustainable action to strengthen the health systems to ensure that by the year 2005, 60% of the population at risk of malaria will have access to interventions that prevent disease and suffering. The Abuja targets calls for a significant expansion of coverage of health services and provision of affordable interventions that could reduce poverty and save lives.

The monitoring and evaluation of the progress being made towards the achievement of the Abuja targets requires careful tracking of the processes and evaluation of outcomes and impact of malaria control interventions implemented at national, district and local level.

Where is each country towards achieving the Abuja targets? How big is the burden of malaria confronting health care services? How does malaria relate to other priority health diseases in a given country? How is the situation evolving over the years?

The Malaria Country Profiles intend to address some of these questions. The main purpose of the Malaria Country Profiles is to provide regular updates of the progress made by the national health systems towards the achievement of the Abuja targets and RBM goal and to serve as a tool for decision-making in terms of redefinition of priorities and reallocation of resources at the national and district levels.

The document describes the overall malaria epidemiology of the country, such as endemicity and transmission level, mosquito and parasite species prevalent in the country, and trends on malaria morbidity and mortality. The status of antimalarial drug policy and therapeutic efficacy data is also highlighted. Lastly, a summary table for core outcome and impact indicators overtime, along with the expected Abuja and RBM targets is presented.

It is our hope that the Malaria Country Profiles will be useful to policy makers and National Malaria Control Programme Managers, district officers, partners, the malaria control community as a whole, and contribute efficiently to monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of malaria control interventions. This first edition of the Malaria Country Profiles comes at a midterm of the Abuja targets and we believe that it will greatly contribute to the understanding of the impact of malaria on national health systems.

The publication of this first edition was only made possible because thousands of dedicated health workers, researchers and other professionals throughout the Region collected recorded and compiled data on malaria and we are very grateful to them.

Together, we will continue to build national health information systems to gather more accurate, complete, timely and useful data on the burden of malaria. Together, we can control malaria in our Region.