Supporting China's Leadership in the Global Malaria Elimination Effort
We work with partners to support China in sharing its malaria control and elimination expertise and innovations with African countries and improving the quality of Chinese-made malaria drugs and commodities to meet global demand.
Nearly 230 million people worldwide are infected with malaria each year, and more than 400,000 die as a result. Since 2000, the world has made significant progress in reducing the burden of malaria, with a decline in deaths of almost 50%, but malaria remains one of the leading causes of death among pregnant women and children under age 5 worldwide. More than 90% of cases and deaths occur in Africa.
In the 1940s, China routinely recorded around 30 million cases of malaria and 300,000 malaria deaths each year. After decades of concerted effort, China has recorded no indigenous cases of malaria since August 2016 and is on track to being declared malaria-free by the World Health Organization. Chinese scientists and public health officials have accrued a vast wealth of expertise that is relevant to global malaria elimination efforts. Much of China’s progress was made while it was still a low-income country and was based on low-cost systems innovations, making its experience particularly valuable to the low- and middle-income countries that bear the brunt of malaria today.
The foundation works with a range of public and private partners on initiatives to share China’s malaria control and elimination expertise in Africa, as well as to support China’s contribution to building the capabilities of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) to establish robust public health systems across the continent. We also help China improve the quality of its malaria commodities, such as drugs and bed nets, so it can play a larger role in meeting the global demand for such products. In addition, we support China’s increasing engagement in multilateral mechanisms aimed at global malaria elimination, such as the End Malaria Council.
One project we support is in the Rufiji District of Tanzania, where scientists and public health experts from China CDC’s National Institute of Parasitic Diseases have been working with their counterparts from the Ifakara Health Institute on a pilot project to test the applicability of China’s 1-3-7 strategy to an East African context. (“1-3-7” refers to a rigorous surveillance system that requires reporting of malaria cases within one day of diagnosis, confirmation and investigation within three days, and a focused investigation and action to prevent further transmission within seven days.) The project adapted this to create the 1-7 model, which is better suited to local conditions in Tanzania and uses China’s experience of “barefoot doctors” to train villagers to monitor, diagnose, and treat suspected malaria patients. China has also supplied high-quality bed nets and other anti-mosquito supplies, as well as Chinese-made artemisinin-based drugs.
