GENEVA: After experiencing severe flooding last year, Pakistan witnessed a five-fold surge in malaria, with reported cases escalating from 500,000 in 2021 to 2.6 million in 2022 as stagnant water created an optimal breeding environment for mosquitoes, according to the World Malaria Report 2023.

Launched by the WHO on Thursday, the global report said that following the floods, the estimated number of malaria cases in Pakistan stands at three million.

In 2022 alone, 2.65m cases were reported across the country. The factors that further contributed to the spread of the disease were displacement, the healthcare system breakdown due to the crisis, increased levels of food insecurity and malnutrition.

The report further states that the world is closer than ever to losing the fight against malaria with 249m malaria cases reported in 2022. This means roughly 5m more people got sick with the disease that year over the previous year.

“The changing climate poses a substantial risk to progress against malaria, particularly in vulnerable regions,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

“More than ever, we are at risk of losing our fight against this disease,” said Peter Sands, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2023