World Malaria Day 2022: 'Harness Innovation' To Reduce Malaria — Know History And Significance

World Malaria Day was aimed to bring greater awareness to the global fight and recognise the existence of malaria across the globe

Malaria is transmitted through the bite of female Anopheles mosquitoes that are infected by the plasmodium parasite. (Representative Photo)

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New Delhi: Every year the global communities observe World Malaria Day on April 25. The day marks the need for continued investment and sustained political commitment to prevent and control malaria across the world. The day is observed globally to raise awareness among people about this life-threatening disease that continues to pose a threat to mankind.

What’s the theme of World Malaria Day?

The day is observed every year focused on a particular theme, and this year the World Health Organisation (WHO) has marked World Malaria Day under the theme “Harness innovation to reduce the malaria disease burden and save lives.”

At the start of this initiative, the global health body has continuously pushed for investments and innovations aimed at new vector control approaches, diagnostics, antimalarial medicines, and other tools that will speed the pace of progress against malaria.

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Despite being a treatable disease, Malaria continues to create havoc impacting the livelihood of people across the globe. In 2020, around 241 million new cases of malaria have been recorded and 627,000 malaria-related fatalities in 85 nations, according to the WHO.

Not only this but in the African region, over two-thirds of the fatalities were reported among children below five years old.

Despite achieving steady advances in the global burden of malaria from 2000 to 2015, recent years have witnessed slow progress, especially in high burden countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.

What’s the history of World Malaria Day?

In 2007, the idea of observing World Malaria Day was seeded from Africa Malaria Day, which is an event that the African government has been observing against the disease since 2001. Back then, the WHO proposed that Africa Malaria day be changed to World Malaria Day at the 60th session of the World Health Assembly.

It was aimed to bring greater awareness to the global fight and to recognise the existence of malaria across the globe.

The deadly disease is transmitted through the bite of female Anopheles mosquitoes that are infected by the plasmodium parasite. And when a mosquito bites a human, a parasite is released into the bloodstream causing malaria.

The symptoms of the disease start appearing 10-15 days after the bite of female anopheles mosquitoes.