Why malaria hasn’t been eradicated, even though we can do it

Edlund said that new anti-malarial drugs are needed to eradicate all stages of the malaria parasite in the body, as well as to counter increasing drug resistance to current medications. Photo: AFP

Despite progress toward preventing the spread of malaria, the world is moving too slowly toward elimination of the disease, which still claims hundreds of thousands of lives each year, the World Health Organization (WHO) said recently.

On the positive side, children and pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa have greater access to tools that stop the transmission of malaria, according to the annual World Malaria Report.