What is malaria?
Malaria is a serious, sometimes fatal, disease spread by mosquitoes and caused by a parasite.
Malaria was a significant health risk in all tropical countries. Until it was eliminated by multiple programs , The illness presents with flu-like symptoms that include high fever and chills.
There are three necessary aspects to the malaria life cycle:
The Anopheles mosquito carries the parasite and is where the parasite starts its life cycle.
The parasite (Plasmodium) has multiple subspecies, each causing a different severity of symptoms and responding to different treatments.
The parasite first travels to a human’s liver to grow and multiply. It then travels in the bloodstream and infects and destroys red blood cells.
Is malaria contagious?
Malaria is not spread from person to person (except in pregnancy as noted below) but can be spread in certain circumstances without a mosquito.
This occurs rarely and is usually found in a transmission from the mother to the unborn child (congenital malaria), by blood transfusions, or when intravenous-drug users share needles. Except for the above conditions, malaria is not considered to be contagious person to person.
The most common symptoms are
- fever and chills,
- headaches,
- nausea and vomiting, and
- general weakness and body aches
History of Malaria in India
Malaria is a major public health problem in India but is preventable and curable. Malaria interventions are highly cost-effective and demonstrate one of the highest returns on investment in public health. In countries where the disease is endemic, efforts to control and eliminate malaria are increasingly viewed as high-impact strategic investments that generate significant returns for public health, help to alleviate poverty, improve equity and contribute to overall development.
Malaria has been a problem in India for centuries. Details of this disease can be found even in the ancient Indian medical literature like the Atharva Veda and Charaka Samhita.
In the 30’s there was no aspect of life in the country that was not affected by malaria. During the latter parts of nineteenth and early twentieth century’s, nearly one-fourth of India’s population suffered from malaria, particularly in the states like Punjab and Bengal.
The economic loss due to the loss of man-days due to malaria was estimated to be at Rs. 10,000 million per year in 1935.
NATIONAL FRAME WORK FOR MALARIA ELIMINATION IN INDIA (2016–2030)
VISION
Eliminate malaria nationally and contribute to improved health, quality of life and alleviation of poverty.
GOALS
In line with the WHO Global Technical Strategy for Malaria 2016–2030 (GTS) and the Asia Pacific Leaders Malaria Alliance Malaria Elimination Roadmap, the goals of the National Framework for Malaria Elimination in India 2016–2030 are:
• Eliminate malaria (zero indigenous cases) throughout the entire country by 2030; and
• Maintain malaria–free status in areas where malaria transmission has been interrupted And prevent re-introduction of malaria.
OBJECTIVES
The Framework has four objectives:
• Eliminate malaria from all 26 low (Category 1) and moderate (Category 2) transmission States/union territories (UTs) by 2022;
• Reduce the incidence of malaria to less than 1 case per 1000 population per year in all States and UTs and their districts by 2024;
• Interrupt indigenous transmission of malaria throughout the entire country, including All high transmission states and union territories (UTs) (Category 3) by 2027; and
• Prevent the re-establishment of local transmission of malaria in areas where it has been Eliminated and maintain national malaria-free status by 2030 and beyond.
Malaria is a major public health problem in India but is preventable and curable. Malaria interventions are highly cost-effective and demonstrate one of the highest returns on investment in public health.
In countries where the disease is endemic, efforts to control and eliminate malaria are increasingly viewed as high-impact strategic investments that generate significant returns for public health, help to alleviate poverty, improve equity and contribute to overall development.
India contributes 70% of malaria cases and 69% of malaria deaths in the South-East Asia Region.
However, a WHO projection showed an impact in terms of a decrease of 50–75% in the number of malaria cases by 2015 in India (relative to 2000 baseline), which showed that the country has been on track to decrease case incidence 2000–2015.
Lessons from Sri Lanka in curbing Malaria
In November 2016, the World Health Organisation certified that Sri Lanka is a malaria free nation. It is the second country to eradicate malaria in the region after Maldives, which has been free of the disease since 1984. No locally transmitted cases of malaria had been recorded in the country for three-and a-half years.
World Malaria Day 2018: Seven decades, seven voices in the global malaria fight
On World Malaria Day, 25 April, WHO is calling for urgent action to get the global fight against malaria back on track.
According to the latest data from WHO, there were an estimated 216 million cases of malaria in 2016, marking a return to 2012 levels. Deaths stood at about 445 000, a similar number to 2015. Fifteen countries, all but one in sub-Saharan Africa, carry 80% of the global malaria burden.
To meet the 2030 global malaria targets, expanded coverage of proven tools that have already dramatically lowered the global burden of malaria is needed, combined with greater investments in the research and development of new tools.
“We call on countries and the global health community to close the critical gaps in the malaria response,” said Dr TedrosAdhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, in his World Malaria Day message. “Together, we must ensure that no one is left behind in accessing life-saving services to prevent, diagnose and treat malaria.”
Q. Strategy of Lankan to eliminate Malaria from country :
Web-based surveillance: All fever cases were tested for malaria and each case notified with the Anti Malaria Campaign (AMC) at the ministry of health. People with a travel history to countries with malaria transmission were closely tracked for symptoms, as were people in the armed forces on peacekeeping missions, immigrants, emigrants, tourists and pilgrims.
Rationing medicines: Anti-malarial medicines were only available with the AMC, which compelled the private health sector to notify all cases.
24×7 hotline: AMC ran a 24-hour hotline to notify, track and treat the patient in isolation to stop further spread of infection.
Parasite-control strategy: In the early1990s, the AMC changed from vector-control (mosquito control) to parasite control strategy to contain infection.
Health access: A strong public health system, sanitation and roads lowered mosquito breeding and took treatment to people in the remotest of places. Early diagnosis and prompt treatment by trained health workers with focus on high-risk areas lowered disease and deaths.
Stakeholder partnerships: Intensive disease surveillance, integrated vector management, rigorous community engagement and research increased social, technical and financial support for eradication
