The World Health Organisation has identified twenty-five countries with the potential to eradicate malaria by 2025. This is called the E-2025 initiative.

What is E-2025 initiative ?

The WHO has identified 25 countries which will work by fighting the dual threat of malaria and COVID-19.

The WHO will provide technical guidance and specialised support to these countries under the initiative.

What is the Background of E-25 Initiative?

The World Health Organisation launched the E-2020 initiative in 2017.

The E-2020 aimed to support a group of countries to achieve zero indigenous cases of malaria by 2020. However, certain countries are yet to achieve this target. Thus, they were identified under the E-2025 initiative and new plan is to be launched.

How were the countries selected for E-2025?

The countries were selected based on 4 criteria. They were as follows:

• 1-Establishment of Government-endorsed elimination plan
• 2-The country should have met the threshold of malaria case reductions in recent years
• 3-The country should have the capacity of malaria surveillance
• 4-It should have been selected by the WHO Malaria Elimination Oversight Committee

What is the position of India to fight Malaria?
 

-The World Malaria Report (WMR) 2020 released by WHO, which gives the estimated cases for malaria across the world, indicates that India has made considerable progress in reducing its malaria burden.
 

-India is the only high endemic country which has reported a decline of 17.6% in 2019 as compared to 2018.

What are the Initiatives Taken by India?
 

-In 2017, India launched its 5-year National Strategic Plan for Malaria Elimination that shifted focus from Malaria control to elimination and provided a roadmap to end malaria in 571 districts out of India’s 678 districts by 2022.

-Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has  established ‘Malaria Elimination Research Alliance-India (MERA-India) which is a conglomeration of partners working on malaria control.