With Georgia joining the list, 45 countries and one territory are now malaria-free.
“This is a huge milestone worth marking; with Georgia’s achievement, the WHO European Region is another step closer to initiate certification as the first malaria-free region in the world,” says Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe.
Georgia has a long history with malaria, with systematic control efforts dating back to the early 1900s. An estimated 30 per cent of the nation’s population suffered from the disease in the 1920s. A few decades later, World War II brought about another spike in cases due to population movement and the strain on health facilities. Post-war, Georgia employed newer medicines, insecticide spraying, and robust surveillance, effectively interrupting the transmission of three strains. The country officially saw its last indigenous malaria case back in 2009. For the World Health Organization to grant malaria-free status, a country must prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that there has been no indigenous transmission for at least three consecutive years. Georgia’s certification now leaves Turkey as the only remaining country in the WHO European region left to be certified.
