World Malaria Day 2011: Achieving Progress and Impact

This year's World Malaria Day theme---"Achieving Progress and Impact"---highlights recent successes in efforts to and causes global partners to take stock of what needs to be done to to reach near zero deaths by 2015.

Success and Challenges

Photo: A healthcare professional with a woman and her child In the last 10 years, funding has increased and many partners have stepped up efforts and joined together to scale up life-saving malaria interventions, especially in Africa. For example, by the end of 2010, enough insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) had been delivered to sub-Saharan Africa to cover three-quarters of the 765 million people living in areas where malaria is transmitted.

Increased efforts and funding have led to progress and impact.

The 2010 World Health Organization (WHO) World Malaria Report estimates that malaria caused an estimated 781,000 deaths globally in 2009, down from an estimated 985,000 in 2000.
At the end of this decade, 11 countries and one area in the WHO's African Region have shown a reduction of more than 50% in either confirmed malaria cases or admissions and deaths.
In 32 of the 56 malaria-endemic countries outside Africa, the number of confirmed malaria cases declined more than 50%.

Challenges to reaching near zero deaths by 2015 remain, including continuing high levels of intervention coverage, addressing insecticide resistance that can weaken the efficacy of ITNs and indoor residual spraying, and combating drug resistance that affects the ability of antimalarial drugs to cure a patient with malaria.

CDC’s Contribution

Photo: A young girl sitting on a bench. CDC contributes to malaria control largely through the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI), a U.S. Government initiative led by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented jointly by USAID and CDC. As part of the U.S. Global Health Initiative, PMI has expanded beyond its original 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria and beyond Africa to the Greater Mekong Sub-region. PMI works in close collaboration with host ministries of health and other local and international partners in the public and private spheres. In addition, CDC conducts multidisciplinary strategic and applied research to better understand malaria and develop safe, effective interventions for its prevention and control.