Global malaria eradication efforts should focus on children and pregnant women to fight the most persistent pockets of the disease, a World Health Organization (WHO) report has urged.
The Global Malaria Report 2019, launched last Wednesday in Switzerland, found that, despite drops in malaria infection overall, around 11 million pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa—almost one in three—contracted the disease in 2018.
Malaria affects the unborn child, often triggering anaemia and low birth weight. In 2018, nearly 900,000 babies were born in sub-Saharan Africa with low birth weight caused directly by malaria, the report noted.