The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently stated that India over the last year has witnessed a sharp decline in the number of malaria cases. The organisation further credited the state of Odisha for the same. It stated that it was due to Odisha’s exceptional performance, the country was able to cut down the number of Malaria cases. Moreover, India is the only country among the top five nations where cases of Malaria have been reported to witness a decline. WHO praised the Odisha government for the efforts and training that it imparted to detect and treat malaria cases in the state in order to prevent any kind of an outbreak.

The information was published on WHO’s website under its Q&A section. It stated that India “registered a 24 per cent reduction in cases (from 2016 to 2017), largely due to substantial declines of the disease in the highly malarious state of Odisha, home to approximately 40 per cent of all malaria cases in the country.” The organisation also stated that by 2017, India had accounted for 4 per cent of the global burden of malaria morbidity. It also noted that the country also accounted for 52 per cent of deaths that occurred outside the WHO African Region and all this happened despite “impressive gains”.

WHO stated that as per government data, Malaria cases in Odisha fell by nearly half from the July-December period, that brought down the number of cases to 156,000. The country overall accounted for three million fewer cases that make up for a total of 24 per cent cases as compared to the previous year.

While congratulating about the same, Naveen Patnaik, the Chief Minister of Odisha took to his Twitter handle and said, “#Odisha has emerged as the best-performing state with 80% reduction in #malaria by significantly expanding access to diagnostics and treatment, pioneering effort to upgrade skills of health workers & SHGs by #MissionShakti. Congratulate our Asha Didis, @mission_shakti @HFWOdisha.” He further called the World Malaria Report 2018 “a vindication of our relentless pursuit to ensure health for the farthest & poorest”.