As the world observes anti-malaria day, the world health organisation said that half of the world’s population - 3.2 billion people - remain at risk of malaria. In 2015, 214 million new cases of the malaria were reported in 95 countries and more than 400,000 people died of it.
The WHO is set to release a global world malaria day report to show the status of the programme of eliminating the diseases across the world.

In 2015, all countries in the Europe reported zero indigenous cases of malaria for the first time which is down from 90,000 cases a decade ago. Eight non-European countries have also reported zero cases of malaria in 2014.
 
As per the WHO, since the year 2000, malaria mortality rates have declined by 60%. In Africa, malaria mortality rates fell by 66% among all age groups and by 71% among children under 5 years. While commending these countries, the WHO has also highlighting need for greater investment in regions like African with high rate of malaria transmission.
 
According to WHO, the improvement in situation happened because of the use of core malaria control tools in the last decade. These tools include the insecticide-treated bed-nets, indoor residual spraying, rapid diagnostic testing and artemisinin based combination therapy etc. 

However, the WHO warns that elimination of malaria will not be easy. “New technologies must go hand in hand with strong political and financial commitment,” says Dr Pedro Alonso, Director, WHO Global malaria programme.