The country
reported 30 million cases of the infectious disease annually in the 1940s but has
now gone four consecutive years without an indigenous case.
"We
congratulate the people of China on ridding the country of malaria," said
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
"Their
success was hard-earned and came only after decades of targeted and sustained
action. With this announcement, China joins the growing number of countries
that are showing the world that a malaria-free future is a viable goal."
Countries
that have achieved at least three consecutive years of zero indigenous cases
can apply for WHO certification of their malaria-free status. They must present
rigorous evidence -- and demonstrate the capacity to prevent transmission
re-emerging.
China
becomes the 40th territory certified malaria-free by the Geneva-based WHO.
The last
countries to gain the status were El Salvador (2021), Algeria and Argentina
(2019), and Paraguay and Uzbekistan (2018).
There is a
separate list of 61 countries where malaria never existed, or disappeared
without specific measures.
Global
progress plateauing
China is
the first country in the WHO's Western Pacific region to be awarded a
malaria-free certification in more than three decades.
The only
others with certified status are Australia (1981), Singapore (1982) and Brunei
(1987).
The WHO's
World Malaria Report 2020 said global progress against the disease was
plateauing, particularly in African countries bearing the brunt of cases and
deaths.
The annual
report, published in November, said that after steadily tumbling from 736,000
in 2000, the disease claimed an estimated 411,000 lives in 2018 and 409,000 in
2019.
Meanwhile
in 2019 the global tally of malaria cases was estimated at 229 million -- a
figure that has been at the same level for the past four years.
Over 90 percent
of malaria deaths occur in Africa, the majority -- more than 265,000 -- in
young children.
China's
pioneering malaria battle
In the
1950s, Beijing started working out where malaria was spreading and began to
combat it with preventative anti-malarial medicines, said the WHO.
The country
reduced mosquito breeding grounds and stepped up spraying insecticide in homes.
In 1967,
China launched a scientific programme to find new malaria treatments, which led
to the discovery in the 1970s of artemisinin -- the core compound of
artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), which are the most effective
antimalarial drugs available.
In the
1980s, China was among the first countries to extensively test the use of
insecticide-treated nets to prevent malaria. By 1988, more than 2.4 million had
been distributed nationwide.
By the end
of 1990, the number of malaria cases in China had plummeted to 117,000, and
deaths had been cut by 95 percent.
"China's
ability to think outside the box served the country well in its own response to
malaria, and also had a significant ripple effect globally," said Pedro
Alonso, director of the WHO's global malaria programme.
Southern
border surveillance
From 2003,
China stepped up efforts across the board that brought annual case numbers down
to around 5,000 within 10 years.
After four
consecutive years of zero indigenous cases, China applied for WHO certification
in 2020.
Experts
travelled to China in May this year to verify its malaria-free status -- and
its plans to prevent the disease from coming back.
The risk of
imported cases remains a concern, not only among people returning from
sub-Saharan Africa and other malaria-hit regions, but also in the southern
Yunnan Province, which borders Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, all struggling with
the disease.
China has
stepped up its malaria surveillance in at-risk zones in a bid to prevent the
disease re-emerging, said the WHO.