Malaria cases rise by 89% in Chinese province

Information on malaria in China is hard to come by. In 2004, the number of cases topped 740,000; the following year,the caseload dropped to 39,000, and in 2006, the Chinese Ministry of Health announced that they’d eliminate malaria altogether by 2015 (with the exception of heavily malarious Hainan and Yunnan provinces). What exactly the Chinese are doing to stanch malaria is unclear, but something clearly went wrong in Anhui province in 2006. Cases there shot up by 89% over the previous year, to 17,917 by September. The government responded by promising to step up efforts to control the disease, and to “severely” punish “those officials whose lax supervision caused a spread of the disease.”

For more: “Malaria spreads in east China province,” People’s Daily Online, October 4, 2006