Video message of WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti
It is World Malaria Day 2021 and we call on all stakeholders to draw the line against this disease, because all malaria cases and deaths are preventable.
Although the WHO African Region accounts for virtually all 94% of global malaria cases and deaths, our countries have made progress in preventing both.
In the past twenty years, more than 1.2 billion malaria cases, and 7.1 million deaths, have been averted in the Region. Algeria was certified malaria free in 2019, and Botswana, Ethiopia, the Gambia, Ghana, Namibia and South Africa achieved the 2020 milestones for malaria reduction. Cabo Verde has maintained zero malaria status since 2018.
We still have many challenges and a long way to go. The Region did not attain the 2020 malaria milestones. While new cases dropped by over nine per cent every five years between 2000 and 2015, in the last five years, this progress has stalled, with incidence dropping by less than two per cent.
Every year that we let malaria continue to spread, health and development suffer. Malaria is responsible for an average reduction of 1.3 per cent in Africa’s economic growth every year. Malaria-related absenteeism and productivity losses cost Nigeria, for example, an estimated 1.1 billion US dollars every year.
To tackle the social and economic impacts of this disease, more needs to be done to ensure life-saving, cost-effective interventions reach at-risk communities.
As of 2019, one in three at-risk households in the Region did not have an insecticide-treated bed net and nearly half of the children under-five did not sleep under a net.
Two-thirds of pregnant women did not receive malaria preventive treatment and without this protection, more than 11 million pregnant women got malaria, and 820,000 new-born children had low birthweight.
Innovations will be critical to speed-up progress towards zero malaria. So, we are excited that Ghana, Kenya and Malawi have delivered more than 1.7 million doses of the RTS’S vaccine. This is a promising additional tool in malaria prevention.
As WHO, we are working with countries to look strategically at the recent stagnated progress and see how to get back on track towards the 2030 targets. This starts with moving from the seeing malaria as only a health problem, to understanding that this disease is a threat to socio-economic development, and it requires a multisectoral response.
With all-of-society action to draw the line against malaria, together, we can ensure that African individuals, families and economies, prosper.