Commonwealth recommit to ending malaria and other neglected tropical diseases

The Kigali Summit on Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) concluded Thursday 23 June with Heads of State and Governments from Commonwealth countries signing and adopting the Kigali Declaration on NTDs, and reaffirming their commitment to ending malaria by 2030.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), its global malaria strategy for 2016–2030 aims to: reduce the incidence of malaria cases by at least 90 per cent; reduce malaria mortality rates by at least 90 per cent; eliminate malaria in at least 35 countries and prevent a resurgence of malaria in all countries that are malaria-free by 2030. The  health agency’s NTD plans for  2021–2030 are to reduce the number of people requiring treatment for NTDs by 90 per cent; eliminate at least one NTD in at least 100 countries; and reduce the disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) related to NTD by 75 per cent.

The Commonwealth countries have committed to reducing the burden of these largely preventable and treatable diseases in recent years.  In 2018, leaders pledged to halve malaria across the Commonwealth by 2023; to eliminate blinding trachoma by 2020; and to combat other mosquito-borne diseases. While global efforts to fight malaria have yielded impressive results. Over 10 million malaria deaths and more than 1 billion malaria cases were averted from 2000 to 2020. Twenty-six countries reported fewer than 100 indigenous cases of malaria in 2020, up from just six countries in 2000. Since 2015, nine countries have been certified as malaria-free by the WHO Director-General.

There has also been substantial progress in the fight against NTDs. Forty-six countries have eliminated at least one NTD and, between 2015 and 2019, more than 1 billion people were treated every year for one or more NTDs. The global toll of malaria and NTDs remains low. But, an estimated 627,000 people died of malaria, and there were 241 million new cases of the disease in 2020. Additionally, more than 1 billion people still required treatment and care for NTDs in 2020, noted WHO.

Further, progress towards the 2023 malaria target for Commonwealth countries, as well as the 2030 targets of the WHO global malaria strategy, remains off track. Also, the targets set out in WHO’s NTD road map for 2021–2030also face severe risk due, in part, to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic when most malaria-endemic countries experienced moderate disruptions to malaria services, and some countries saw delays in the delivery of insecticide-treated net (ITN) campaigns. During the first year of the pandemic, disruptions to malaria services contributed to a marked increase in malaria cases (14 million).

NTD programmes, especially community-based interventions such as preventive chemotherapy campaigns, were among the most severely and frequently affected across the spectrum of health services. But “investment in primary health care will help us to fight malaria and NTDs in a better way,” said Dr Tedros, Director-General of the World Health Organization.