Jakarta, IO – “World Malaria Day” is commemorated every 25 April, with this year’s theme being “Creating Innovations, Achieving Elimination: Working towards Malaria-Free Indonesia in 2030”. Malaria is a vector borne disease spread out by the Anopheles mosquito. There were 304,607 malaria cases di Indonesia in 2021, a steady increase from the 254,055 in 2020 and 250,644 reported in 2019. The latest measurement shows that annual parasite incidence is 1.12 per 1,000 persons, with 275,243 cases (90%) found in the Province of Papua. This is followed by East Nusa Tenggara (9,419 cases) and West Papua (7,628 cases).
“The Government has confirmed that there are five regions throughout Indonesia with different malaria elimination achievements in 2021. They are: the Java and Bali region, with 124 out of 128 regencies and municipalities (97%) being declared malaria-free; the Sumatra, Sulawesi, and West Nusa Tenggara regions: 181 out of 254 regencies and municipalities (74%); the Kalimantan and North Maluku regions: 37 out of 66 regencies and municipalities (56%); the Maluku and East Nusa Tenggara region: 5 out of 33 regencies and municipalities (15%); and the Papua and West Papua region: 0 out of 42 regencies and municipalities (0),” detailed Ministry of Health’s Acting Director for the Prevention and Control of Communicable Diseases, dr. Tiffany Tiara Pakasi, in a media meet held on Friday (22/04/2022).
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In total, 347 out of our 514 regencies and municipalities (68%) have eliminated malaria, an increase from the past year’s coverage at 46%. Only four provinces (DKI Jakarta, East Java, Bali, Banten) have completely eliminated the disease from all of its regencies and municipalities. On the contrary, three provinces (Maluku, Papua, West Papua) have zero malaria elimination within their territories. 124 regencies and municipalities have a low endemic level, 17 with medium endemic level, and 26 with high endemic level. The latter is found in 17 regencies and municipalities in Papua, 5 in West Papua, 3 in East Nusa Tenggara, and 1 in East Kalimantan. Unfortunately, the latter locale is the Regency of North Penajam Paser, where our new capital city will be sited.