Malaria

The WHO specifications for public health pesticides are part of the International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of pesticides, and are used for quality control and international trade.

Malaria continues to be a major global health problem, with over 40% of the world’s population—more than 3.3 billion people—at risk for malaria to varying degrees in countries with on-going transmission. In addition, with modern, rapid means of travel, large numbers of people from nonmalarious areas are being infected, which may seriously affect them after they have returned home.

The World Health Organization estimates that half the world’s population are at risk of malaria, with 243 million people developing clinical malaria last year (86% in Africa), with nearly 863,000 deaths (89% in Africa, most being children).

The World Health Organization estimates that half the world’s population are at risk of malaria, with 243 million people developing clinical malaria last year (86% in Africa), with nearly 863,000 deaths (89% in Africa, most being children). Malaria remains endemic in 108 countries, and while parasitebased diagnosis is increasing, most suspected cases of malaria are still not properly identified, resulting in over-use of anti-malarial drugs and poor disease monitoring.

This report is the third in a series of laboratory-based evaluations of malaria RDTs. It provides a comparative measure of RDT performance in a standardized way to distinguish between well and poorly performing tests to inform procurement decisions of malaria control programmes and guide UN procurement policy.

The World Health Organization estimates that half the world’s population is at risk of malaria, with an estimated 216 million people (range 149–274 million) developing clinical malaria in 2010 (81% in Africa), and 655,000 deaths (range 537,000–907,000) due to malaria (91% in Africa, most being children).

Early, rapid diagnosis of malaria is gaining increasing importance in health programmes in endemic countries in response to increasing drug costs and recognition of the importance of early, correct treatment to the reduction in malaria morbidity and mortality.

In view of the increasing demand of countries to scale-up malaria diagnostics following the large-scale introduction of expensive antimalarial medicines, and the decreasing malaria trends in many countries, there is a need to provide clear guidance on the criteria for selecting malaria diagnostics meeting international quality standards.

The objective of this document is to provide guidance in the performance of a situation analysis aimed at identifying the weaknesses, strengths and needs for strengthening a country's public health pesticide management practices.

Malaria case management remains a vital component of the malaria control strategies. This entails early diagnosis and prompt treatment with effective antimalarial medicines. The WHO Guidelines for the treatment of malaria, which were first published in 2006, provide global, evidence-based recommendations on the case management of malaria, targeted mainly at policy-makers at country level, providing a framework for the development of specific and more detailed national treatment protocols that take into account local antimalarial drug resistance patterns and health service capacity in the country.