Report titled Achieving the malaria MDG target released by WHO & UNICEF

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on 17 September 2015 jointly released the Achieving the malaria MDG target report.

The report concluded that the malaria Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target to stop and reverse the incidence of malaria by 2015 was achieved.

India stood at the third place after Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo in terms of number of cases and number of deaths due to malaria.

Highlights of Achieving the Malaria MDG Target report

• Malaria death rates have plunged by 60 percent since 2000, translating into 6.2 million lives saved and the vast majority of them are children.
• The malaria MDG target to have halted and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria by 2015, has been met convincingly, with new malaria cases dropping by 37 percent in 15 years.
• An increasing number of countries are on the verge of eliminating malaria. In 2014, 13 countries reported zero cases of the disease and 6 countries reported fewer than 10 cases.

• The fastest decreases were seen in the Caucasus and Central Asia, which reported zero cases in 2014, and in Eastern Asia.
• Despite tremendous progress, malaria remains an acute public health problem in many regions.
• In 2015 alone, there were an estimated 214 million new cases of malaria, and approximately 438 000 people died of this preventable and treatable disease.
• About 3.2 billion people – almost half of the world’s population – are still at risk of malaria.
• In 2015, 89 percent of all malaria cases and 91 percent of deaths were in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Fifteen countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, accounted for 80 percent of malaria cases and 78 percent of deaths globally in 2015.
• Children under 5 account for more than two-thirds of all deaths associated with malaria. Between 2000 and 2015, the under 5 malaria death rate fell by 65 percent or an estimated 5.9 million child lives saved.
• The surge in funding has led to an unprecedented expansion in the delivery of core interventions across sub-Saharan Africa. Since 2000, approximately 1 billion insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs) have been distributed in Africa.
• Between 2000 and 2015, the proportion of children under 5 sleeping under an ITN in sub-Saharan Africa increased from less than 2 percent to an estimated 68 percent.

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