Two European countries, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, have added to 39 other countries declared malaria-free by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The certification follows a sustained, century-long effort to stamp out the disease by the two countries, the health agency said on Wednesday, March 29.
Azerbaijan has a population of about 10 million people, while there are nearly 10 million in Tajikistan.
The two countries beat Nigeria, which parades over a quarter (27 per cent) of global malaria cases and deaths to becoming free of the disease.
Report shows how Nigeria loses over 200,000 people, including women and children, and more than half a trillion naira to the disease yearly.
There are over 220 million people in Nigeria.
“The people and governments of Azerbaijan and Tajikistan have worked long and hard to eliminate malaria,” WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said while declaring the two countries free of the scourge in a statement on Wednesday.
WHO noted that certification of malaria elimination is its official recognition of a country’s malaria-free status.
The certification is granted when a country has shown – with rigorous, credible evidence – that the chain of indigenous malaria transmission by Anopheles mosquitoes has been interrupted nationwide for at least the past three consecutive years.
According to the WHO, malaria control efforts in Azerbaijan and Tajikistan were strengthened through a range of investments and public health policies that enabled the governments, over time, to eliminate the disease and maintain malaria-free status.
The agency explained that for more than six decades, both governments guaranteed universal primary health care and vigorously supported targeted malaria interventions – including prevention measures such as spraying the inside walls of homes with insecticides, promoting early detection and treatment of all cases, and maintaining the skills and capacities of all health workers engaged in malaria elimination.
“Both Azerbaijan and Tajikistan utilize national electronic malaria surveillance systems that provide nearly real-time detection of cases and allow for rapid investigations to determine if an infection is local or imported. Additional interventions include biological methods of larvae control, such as mosquito-eating fish, and water management measures to reduce malaria vectors.”
With the certification for both countries, the WHO European Region is now two steps closer to becoming the first region in the world to be fully malaria-free, said Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe.
