Nepal has failed to eradicate malaria by the target, and 2030 may be the new date

It is official: Nepal did not meet the target for the eradication of malaria.

The country must attain zero indigenous cases or local transmission of the disease by 2023, zero deaths from 2023, and zero indigenous cases for three years for the government to fulfill its commitment to become “malaria-free” by 2026.

Nevertheless, fresh reports of indigenous malaria cases in 2023 and 2024 destroyed any hopes of the disease being eradicated from the nation.

As native cases of the fatal illness have been documented in 2023 and 2024, it is not feasible to eradicate malaria by 2025, according to Dr. Sangeeta Kaushal Mishra, director general of the Department of Health Services. “We don’t know the new deadline yet, but it might be 2030.”

Plasmodium parasites are the source of malaria. The World Health Organization states that these lethal parasites are carried by infected female Anopheles mosquitoes.

Local transmission accounts for indigenous malaria cases, in which the afflicted individuals have no prior travel history to countries where malaria is prevalent.

23 native people made up the 528 cases of malaria infections that were reported in the most recent fiscal year. More than 80 percent of the 505 imported cases came from India.

Malaria cases that were imported from African nations have been reported. Malaria tests were positive for Nepali security personnel stationed in UN peacekeeping missions in armed conflict areas.

According to officials, Nepal is unlikely to eradicate the disease unless India does so first.

Mishra stated that it is not possible to eradicate malaria in Nepal until the disease is eradicated in India because of the two countries’ proximity, their open and porous border, and the uncontrolled movement of citizens from both nations.

Meeting the elimination target will be extremely difficult, according to officials, because of several additional factors, such as reductions in government and humanitarian agencies’ health budgets and changes in malaria vectors that carry the disease into the hills and mountains as a result of global warming. In addition, the majority of medical facilities nationwide lack entomologists, which is a requirement for conducting surveillance.

The director of the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division, Dr. Rudra Marasini, stated that “a large number of situations are now being reported from hill and mountain districts, unlike in the past, when malaria primarily occurred in Tarai districts.”

Even the previously thought to be non-endemic mountainous districts of Mugu, Bajura, and Humla have reported cases of malaria.

Geographical obstacles make it more difficult to conduct surveillance in hill and mountain districts than in Tarai districts, according to Marasini.

At least six significant vector-borne diseases that are impacted by climate drivers are currently present in Nepal and are regarded as endemic, with climate change being implicated as the primary driver, according to the UN report “Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.”

The report also provides more proof that the elevational distribution of Culex, Anopheles, and Aedes mosquito vectors in Nepal has expanded above 2,000 meters due to global warming.

Although there had not been a malaria-related death in the nation since 2016, one was reported in 2021, five years later.

According to health ministry officials, the majority of malaria cases in the nation until recently were caused by the protozoan parasite Plasmodium Vivax, which results in a relatively mild form of the disease.

Nonetheless, there has been an increase in Plasmodium falciparum cases, which typically result in severe and fatal malaria. The Sahara desert and many African nations are home to the parasite.