Ahead of the World’s Malaria Day on April 25, 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) has launched an initiative to help eradicate malaria in 25 countries by 2025. The health agency is determined to eliminate the deadly disease that kills about 400,000 annually across the world. The WHO through the launch of an initiative in 2017 has supported 21 countries in their drive to eradicate malaria by 2020, of which eight countries succeeded, reporting zero caseloads of human malaria by 2020 including Iran, China, and Paraguay.
The agency has identified 25 more countries to support their human malaria eradication drive. The countries include Thailand, North Korea, Honduras, and Guatemala.
In a statement, the health body said “These countries will receive specialised support and technical guidance as they work towards the target of zero malaria.”
“Many of the countries we are recognizing today carried, at one time, a very high burden of malaria,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
