Health Progress

Health authorities in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, northwest

China, announced on December 21, 2019, that the region had eliminated malaria, following the completion of a state appraisal examining the region’s 19-year-old clean bill of health.

Mard Abdurahm, Director of the Disease Control and Prevention Department of the regional health commission, said Xinjiang had reported no local malaria infection cases for 19 consecutive years.

The last case was recorded in August 2000, when a farmer in Aksu Prefecture was infected.

Malaria elimination is a national public health action carried out by the Chinese Government in response to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and the World Health Organization’s Malaria Elimination Initiative.

Abdurahm said the malaria elimination work in Xinjiang has received strong support from the Central Government. From 2011 to 2019, more than 10.73 million yuan ($1.5 million) was invested to boost malaria prevention and control in the region.

He said epidemiological investigations into 48 malaria cases in Xinjiang from 2011 to 2019 confirmed that they were all infections carried from outside the region.

The malaria elimination assessment in Xinjiang was made by a team of experts from the National Health Commission, the National Immigration Administration and the General Administration of Customs in early December 2019.