Malaria cases fell by 24% between 2016 and 2017 in India: WHO

New Delhi: The World Health Organisation's World Malaria Report 2018 released on Tuesday noted that India has registered a 24% fall in the cases when compared to figures from 2016.

The report states that there has been a substantial decline in the number of malaria cases in Odisha which has helped the country fare better this year. The 'highly malarious' state has 40% of all malaria-related cases reported in the country.

The report also said that WHO would conduct special campaigns in countries most affected by malaria - Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, and India. It said that while 3.5 million cases were reported in these 10 African countries last year, India showed considerable improvement.

From a global prospective though, WHO notes that the situation is not good because the instances of malaria cases reported has gone up to 219 million in 2017 from 217 million in 2016. The report said that the previous objective of reducing malaria cases globally by 40% between 2016 and 2020 are 'not on track to be met.'

According to WHO, India had 4% of the global cases related to malaria. It highlighted how funding remains a key issue and stated that the United States remains the single-largest international donor with contributions of $1.2 billion in 2017.