The World Health Organization (WHO) on October 20 certified Egypt as malaria-free.
- According to WHO, Malaria is as old as Egyptian civilisation itself, but the disease that plagued pharaohs now belongs to its history and not its future.
- The Aswan Dam, built in the 1960s, created new malaria risks as standing water produced breeding grounds for mosquitoes. But by 2001, Egypt had malaria “firmly under control”.
- Globally, 44 countries and one territory have now been certified as malaria-free.
- Certification is granted by the WHO when a country has proven that the chain of indigenous malaria transmission by the Anopheles mosquitoes has been interrupted nationwide for at least the previous three consecutive years.
- A country must also demonstrate the ability to prevent the re-establishment of transmission.
- Malaria kills more than 600,000 people every year, 95 percent of them in Africa.
- There were 249 million recorded malaria cases worldwide in 2022. Spread by mosquitoes, malaria is mostly found in tropical countries. The infection is caused by a parasite.
- Nigeria accounts for more than a quarter of all malaria deaths annually, ahead of the DR Congo, Uganda and Mozambique.
