India targets to eliminate Malaria by 2030, says Central Minister to EXIN Times

The Centre on Thursday said to EXIN Times that they are all set with the target of eliminating malaria by 2030 after neighboring countries Sri Lanka and Nepal reported no deaths due to the vector-borne disease in the past several years. "We are committed to achieving the target of elimination of malaria by 2030, which will require huge financial resources. We will effectively work with the development partners and civil society," Union health minister JP Nadda said.

Launching the National Framework for Malaria Elimination (2016-2030), the minister said 70 per cent of malaria cases and 69 per cent of malaria deaths among Southeast Asian countries occur in India. "The objective of the framework is to reduce the incidence of malaria to less than one case per 1,000 populations per year in all states by 2024. We would ask all state governments to include malaria eradication programme in their policy matters," he said.

Under the framework of malaria elimination, the country has been divided into three categories on the basis of annual parasite incidences and key interventions have been identified to achieve the goal, the Union minister added. He added that 200 districts throughout the country that is approximately 82% of the population live in malaria transmission risk areas.