Malaria occurs in nearly 100 countries worldwide. According to the 2013 World Malaria Report, there were more than 200 million malaria cases in 2012. An estimated 627,000 people died from malaria in 2012, 90 percent of them in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most of those who die from malaria are children under age 5.

Between 2000 and 2012, major investments in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention contributed to a 25 percent decline in malaria incidence and a 42 percent decline in malaria deaths worldwide.

Our Malaria strategy is based on a core set of foundational principles that support our evolving strategic choices.

  • Malaria eradication is defined as removing the parasites that cause human malaria from the human population. Simply interrupting transmission is not sufficient to achieve eradication.
  • Eradication can be accelerated by new drug regimens and strategies that lead to complete parasitologic cure of the individual. Current artemisinin-based regimens achieve only clinical cure of the individual and do not eliminate the forms of the parasites that are responsible for continued transmission.
  • The majority of malaria infections occur in asymptomatic people, who are a source of continued transmission. A successful and accelerated eradication effort will target asymptomatic infections through community-based efforts.
  • Emerging resistance to current drugs and insecticides is an immediate threat to recent gains and an obstacle to future progress. Use of current tools and development of new tools should be guided by this evolutionary imperative.
  • Malaria is biologically and ecologically different throughout the world. Malaria eradication will depend on strategies developed and implemented on a local or regional level.

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Read the source article at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation