East Africa: China’s Malaria Success Offers Lessons for East Africa’s 2030 Elimination Push

Nairobi — East Africa has four years to deliver on its 2030 malaria elimination ambition, but lessons from China’s seven-decade journey suggest the region must move faster from broad malaria control to a far more targeted system built around finding, investigating, and responding to every case.

China, once burdened by an estimated 30 million malaria cases annually in the 1940s, was certified malaria-free by the World Health Organization in 2021 after eliminating indigenous transmission in 2017.