April 25 is World Malaria Day. The theme for this year is:

Invest in the future. Defeat Malaria.

Key messages

WHO’s December 2014 estimates indicate that there were about 198 million cases of malaria in 2013 (range: 124 million to 283 million) and an estimated 584 000 deaths (range: 367 000 to 755 000).

Globally, Malaria mortality rates have fallen by 47% since 2000, and by 54% in the WHO African Region.

Most deaths occur among children living in Africa where a child dies every minute from malaria.

Malaria mortality rates among children in Africa have been reduced by an estimated 58% since 2000.

The Roll Back Malaria Partnership has drafted ambitious goals and targets set out in a draft post-2015 strategy to be presented to the World Health Assembly in May. The new strategy aims to reduce malaria cases and deaths by 90% by 2030 from current levels.

Four countries have been certified free of malaria in the last decade and the post-2015 strategy sets the goal of eliminating the disease from a further 35 countries by 2030.

Useful Links:

Link to the Roll Back Malaria World Malaria Day page:

http://www.rollbackmalaria.org/news-events/events/world-malaria-day

Link to the WHO Factsheet on Malaria (updated April 2015):

http://who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs094/en/

Links to the WHO campaign pages:

http://who.int/campaigns/malaria-day/2015/en/

http://who.int/campaigns/malaria-day/2015/event/en/

Link to the World Malaria Report 2014:

http://who.int/malaria/publications/world_malaria_report_2014/report/en/