WHO declares China malaria-free: Country has zero cases of the deadly disease a decade after Beijing launched its wildly successful 1-3-7 strategy
The World Health Organization has declared China malaria-free after a 70-year effort to eradicate the dangerous mosquito-borne disease.
In the 1940s, China reported some 30 million cases of the infectious disease annually—it has now gone four consecutive years without an indigenous case.
'We congratulate the people of China on ridding the country of malaria,' WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
'Their success was hard-earned and came only after decades of targeted and sustained action. With this announcement, China joins the growing number of countries that are showing the world that a malaria-free future is a viable goal.'
In 2012, Beijing implemented a '1-3-7' strategy: allowing local health facilities one day to report an infection, three days to investigate the case and assess risk and seven days to implement countermeasures to prevent further spread of the disease.
Countries that have achieved at least three consecutive years of zero indigenous cases can apply for WHO certification of their malaria-free status. They must present rigorous evidence - and demonstrate the capacity to prevent transmission re-emerging.
China is the 40th, and by far largest, nation to do so.
The last countries to gain the status were El Salvador in 2021, Algeria and Argentina in 2019 and Paraguay and Uzbekistan in 2018.
China has gone from an estimated 30 million cases of malaria annually in the 1940s to four consecutive years without an indigenous case
There are also an additional 61 countries where malaria never existed, or disappeared without specific measures.
China is the first country in the WHO's Western Pacific region to be awarded a malaria-free certification in more than three decades.
The only others in the region certified as malaria-free are Australia in 1981, Singapore in 1982 and Brunei in 1987.
In 2019, there were an estimated 229 million cases of malaria worldwide.
The WHO's World Malaria Report 2020 said progress against the disease was plateauing—particularly in African countries, which bear the brunt of diagnoses and deaths.
The annual report, published in November, said that after steadily tumbling from 736,000 in 2000, the disease claimed an estimated 411,000 lives in 2018 and 409,000 in 2019.
Countries that have achieved at least three consecutive years of zero indigenous cases can apply for WHO certification of their malaria-free status
The life-cycle of the parasite, Plasmodium, that causes malaria
Meanwhile in 2019, the global tally of malaria cases was estimated at 229 million - a figure that has been at the same level for the past four years.
Over 90 percent of malaria deaths occur in Africa, the majority, more than 265,000, are young children.
In the 1950s, Beijing started working out where malaria was spreading and began to combat it with preventative anti-malarial medicines, said the WHO.
The country reduced mosquito breeding grounds and stepped up spraying insecticide in homes.
In 1967, China launched a scientific program to find new malaria treatments, which led to the discovery in the 1970s of artemisinin, one of the most effective antimalarial drugs available.
The WHO's World Malaria Report 2020 said global progress against the disease was plateauing, particularly in African countries, which bear the brunt of diagnoses and deaths
In the 1980s, China was among the first countries to extensively test the use of insecticide-treated nets to prevent malaria.
By 1988, more than 2.4 million nets had been distributed nationwide.
By the end of 1990, the number of malaria cases in China plummeted to 117,000, and deaths had been cut by 95 percent.
'China's ability to think outside the box served the country well in its own response to malaria, and also had a significant ripple effect globally,' said Pedro Alonso, director of the WHO's global malaria program.
In 2003, China stepped up efforts across the board to bring its annual case numbers down to around 5,000.
After four consecutive years of zero indigenous cases, China applied for WHO certification in 2020.
Experts travelled to China in May this year to verify its malaria-free status and analyze its plans to prevent the disease from returning.
The risk of imported cases remains a concern, not only among people returning from sub-Saharan Africa and other malaria-hit regions, but also in the southern Yunnan Province, which borders Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, all struggling with the disease.
China has stepped up its malaria surveillance in at-risk zones in a bid to prevent the disease re-emerging, said the WHO.
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