Ahead of World Malaria Day, the WHO Global Malaria Programme published a new operational strategy outlining its priorities and key activities up to 2030 to help change the trajectory of malaria trends and achieve the global malaria targets. 

The strategy outlines four strategic objectives on which WHO will focus its efforts, including developing norms and standards, introducing new tools and innovation, promoting strategic information for impact, and providing technical leadership of the global malaria response.

In recent years, progress towards critical targets of the WHO Global technical strategy for malaria 2016-2030 has stalled, particularly in countries with a high disease burden. 

In 2022, there were an estimated 608,000 malaria-related deaths and 249 million new malaria cases globally, with young children in Africa bearing the brunt of the disease.

Millions of people continue to miss out on the services they need to prevent, detect, and treat malaria. Additionally, progress in global malaria control has been hampered by resource constraints, humanitarian crises, climate change and biological threats such as drug and insecticide resistance.

“A shift in the global malaria response is urgently needed across the entire malaria ecosystem to prevent avoidable deaths and achieve the targets of the WHO global malaria strategy,” stated Daniel Ngamije, the director of the Global Malaria Programme. 

He added, “This shift should seek to address the root causes of the disease and be centred around accessibility, efficiency, sustainability, equity and integration.”