The World Health Organization estimated the number of people infected with malaria in 2021 at about 247 million, an increase of two million from patients in 2020, noting that Africa is considered the most affected by this disease. The organization stated, in a statement two days before the commemoration of World Malaria Day, corresponding to April 25 of each year, that about half of the world’s population lives in malaria-prone areas and can therefore be infected with it, noting that infants and children under five, pregnant women and people living with HIV They are more likely to be severely affected by this disease. She stressed that 95 percent of the cases of infection were recorded in Africa, and that 96 percent of deaths occurred in this continent, stressing that this region is still “It bears a disproportionately large share of the global burden of malaria”, where the disease has become fatal due to the arrival of vaccines for it, and this is due to the increasing resistance to drugs. And she highlighted that more than half of the recorded malaria deaths in the world were concentrated in four African countries: Nigeria (31.3 percent), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (12.6 percent), Tanzania (4.1 percent), and Niger (3.9 percent) ). Of the number of deaths among children under the age of five, as 80 percent of the victims in Africa belong to this age group. The World Health Organization revealed that this disease, whose source is a single-celled parasite of the genus Plasmodium, is transmitted to humans through mosquito bites, and causes several symptoms such as fever, headache and chills, which leads to a serious condition that may become fatal if not treated, causing the death of 619 thousand people. around the world in 2021, according to the latest statistics issued by the organization. She also pointed out that the insect that causes malaria has become widespread in Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and Nigeria, adapting to the urban environment, and is resistant to many insecticides currently used, expressing hope to reduce the death rate resulting from it at least 90 percent by 2030. Since 2015, the international community has officially announced that ten countries are free of malaria, including Argentina (2019), Algeria (2019) and China (2021).
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