Extract and a comment from me below. Full text here: https://www.who.int/news/item/08-12-2022-despite-continued-impact-of-cov...
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8 December 2022 News release
New data released today by the World Health Organization (WHO) show that countries around the world largely held the line against further setbacks to malaria prevention, testing and treatment services in 2021.
According to this year’s World malaria report, there were an estimated 619 000 malaria deaths globally in 2021 compared to 625 000 in the first year of the pandemic. In 2019, before the pandemic struck, the number of deaths stood at 568 000.
Malaria cases continued to rise between 2020 and 2021, but at a slower rate than in the period 2019 to 2020. The global tally of malaria cases reached 247 million in 2021, compared to 245 million in 2020 and 232 million in 2019...
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The news release draws attention to the successful deployment by governments of malaria prevention measures such as bednets.
These preventive efforts are vital, of course, but I would also want to highlight the need for improving the quality of care for individual cases of malaria, particularly among children. 619,000 deaths is far too many and many of these deaths would have been avoided with earlier diagnosis and treatment. At each stage in the care pathway, from home through primary care through facility care, there are opportunities to improve evidence-informed decision-making - by families, by primary health workers, and by hospital staff. It is tragic, for example, that 7 in 10 children with malaria treated at home are mismanaged, contributing to 2000 deaths every day in Africa alone (see https://www.hifa.org/about-hifa/why-hifa-needed ). Every person needs access to reliable information to diagnose and treat malaria so that we can bring deaths down further.
Best wishes, Neil
Neil Pakenham-Walsh, Global Coordinator HIFA, www.hifa.org neil@hifa.org
Global Healthcare Information Network: Working in official relations with WHO
