It's official: China has eradicated malariaAfter decades of effort, the World Health Organization (WHO), today certifies China that it is free from malaria. This certification comes after an estimated 30 million cases of malaria per year in the 1940s and 300,000 deaths in 2017. China has developed new surveillance technologies, medicines and technologies to stop the transmission of malaria parasites between Anopheles mosquitoes and humans.In the 1950s, antimalaria efforts began with programs to distribute antimalarial medications to those at greatest risk, reduce mosquito breeding areas, and spray insecticides. In the late 1960s, China started a program to find new malaria drugs. Tu Youyou, a pharmaceutical chemist, screened traditional Chinese medicines for compounds that were active against malaria. He eventually isolated artemisinin (Artemisia Annua) from sweetwormwood. Tu was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2015 for Artemisinin, which is the main compound in the front-line antimalarial drugs. China was also one of the pioneers in using insecticide-treated nets during the 1980s.The number of annual cases has declined over the years to around 5000 per year in the late 1990s. The country launched a campaign to eradicate malaria in 2012 with a 1-3-7 strategy. This allowed local health facilities to report malaria diagnoses within one day, three days to investigate and seven days to implement countermeasures. Chinese scientists have been developing genetics-based methods to detect drug resistance and distinguish between imported cases and indigenous cases in recent years.China's ability to think out of the box helped it in its response to malaria, Pedro Alonso (director of WHO's Global Malaria Programme) said in a statement.China was able to maintain zero indigenous cases for three consecutive year and applied for WHOs malaria free certification. This was granted after an inspection mission by the independent Malaria Elimination Certification Panel in May. A program to stop the reestablishment or reoccurrence of malaria is one requirement for certification. This is especially important since China borders three countries where the disease can be found: Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos.China is the fourth country and the most populous to be declared malaria-free. El Salvador in February 2019, and Algeria and Argentina in 2019 were the last two countries to receive this status.
