There was a time when Venezuela led Latin America in the battle against malaria. No longer. The collapse of the country’s economy and health system, combined with a boom in illegal mining in the malaria-ridden south, has sparked a resurgence in the disease, which is creeping across the borders into Colombia and Brazil. The World Health Organization says that between 2010 and 2017 Venezuela witnessed a ninefold increase in the number of confirmed cases of malaria, climbing to 412,000. That was the fastest rate of growth found anywhere in the world, according to the Lancet journal.
The disease is not slowing down. Between 2016 and 2017 alone, the number of confirmed cases jumped 70 per cent. Another study, published this month by Venezuelan lead scientists Adriana Tami and Maria Eugenia Grillet, estimates new cases hit 1m in 2018. “Ten years ago I used to see 20 or 30 cases of malaria a year at my laboratory,” says Oscar Noya, professor at the Institute of Tropical Medicine at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas. “Last year I saw 3,500.”
The global fight against malaria, commemorated today on World Malaria Day, remains centred on Africa, where nine in 10 cases are found. But countries like Venezuela demonstrate the battle is far from won. Progress in eliminating the disease has faltered. Still, scientific breakthroughs are encouraging the hope that the initiative could be regained.
Venezuela has pushed up the malaria rate for the Americas as a whole. In 2017, it accounted for half of all cases in the region, according to WHO data. Brazil, with a population seven times larger and a vast malarious zone in the Amazon basin, accounted for about a fifth.