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Review
. 2024 Aug 21:12:100428.
doi: 10.1016/j.ijregi.2024.100428. eCollection 2024 Sep.

A historical perspective of malaria policy and control in India

Avik Kumar Sam  1 , Siddhartha Karmakar  2   3 , Siuli Mukhopadhyay  2   3 , Harish C Phuleria  1   4   3
Affiliations
Review

A historical perspective of malaria policy and control in India

Avik Kumar Sam et al. IJID Reg. .

Abstract

Malaria is a major public health problem in India, with ∼0.18 million cases reported in 2022 and 1,309 million population living at risk of infection. The Indian government has introduced various intervention strategies to reduce and manage the number of outbreaks with proper mechanisms. In this policy paper, we have extensively reviewed these intervention strategies using a quantitative approach. The success of the Urban Malaria Scheme, focusing on the 131 urban regions distributed across the country, along with the Intensified Malaria Control Project implemented in the seven hotspots, has been highlighted. The recently formulated National Framework for Malaria Elimination in India has resulted in declining malaria cases in hotspots like Odisha. However, states like West Bengal, Maharashtra, and Tripura have emerged as new hotspots in recent years. A systematic platform for data dissemination and active public-private partnership will expedite malaria elimination in India.

Keywords: Climate change; Malaria; Policy; Review.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no competing interests to declare.

Figures

Image, graphical abstract
Graphical abstract
Figure 1
Figure 1
Spatial distribution of the major malaria vectors across India. The distribution data was obtained from existing literature and government reports and replotted using Geopandas in Python 3.10.6. The shaded region represents the distribution of the primary vector of malaria transmission, that is, An. culicifacies.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Malaria in urban India is covered under the Urban Malaria Scheme. % P.f indicates the percentage of P. falciparum (Data Source: NCVBDC, unpublished). P.f., P. falciparum.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Malaria (a) cases and (b) deaths reported in urban towns and the rest of the country. The bar on each dot represents the percent change observed compared to the previous year. (Data Source: NCVBDC, unpublished).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Variations in annual malaria cases and deaths reported in India between 2007 and 2022. The color on each block represents cases; the deaths are represented by numbers (Data source: NCVBDC, unpublished).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Policy changes in India in response to the malaria cases and deaths reported. (Data source: NCVBDC (unpublished). The data was plotted in Matplotlib version 3.5.2.). DDT, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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