India accounts for 6 percent of global malaria cases, says WHO report

India accounted for 6 percent of global malaria cases in 2016, according to the recent study done by World Health Organization (WHO).

India was the third on the list of 15 countries which accounted for 80 percent of all malaria cases in the world in 2016, the WHO's World Malaria Report 2017 added.

Nigeria accounts for the highest 27 percent proportion of cases, followed by Democratic Republic of Congo (10%), India (6%) and Mozambique (4%).

The report also pointed out the loopholes in the surveillance mechanism of India.

"Countries with weak malaria surveillance systems include India and Nigeria, two major contributors to the global burden of malaria, with 8 percent and 16 percent of cases, respectively, detected by the surveillance system," the report stated.

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India also registered a total of 331 malaria deaths in 2016, making it the highest number of deaths to the disease in the Southeast Asia region.

"Odisha, the highest endemic state of India, reported an increase in cases in 2016 (to double the number in 2013). The other countries had no major outbreaks reported," the report added.

Malaria deaths in India were only lower than those in WHO's Africa region where the figure soared to 33,997 for the Democratic Republic of CongoIn 2016, there were an estimated 445,000 deaths from malaria in the world, compared to 446,000 estimated deaths in 2015.

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