ABSTRACT
In 2000, the United Nations developed eight Millennium Development Goals to improve health and wellbeing worldwide. Millennium Development Goal 6, “combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases,” is crucial for many countries worldwide, especially in sub-Saharan Africa which faces a unique dual burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases. Malaria, in particular, has plagued sub-Saharan Africa for decades, a region which carries a disproportionately high global burden of the disease. In 2015, sub-Saharan Africa bore 88% of all malaria cases and 90% of all malaria-related deaths. In areas with high malaria transmission, children under the age of five years old are the most vulnerable to infection, illness, and death, with 70% of malaria deaths occurring in this age group (World Health Organization 2016a). As a result of the substantial expansion of interventions globally, there has been a 58% decline in malaria deaths between 2000 and 2015 (World Health Organization 2016a). In sub-Saharan Africa, as well, the burden of malaria has declined as treatment and diagnosis initiatives have been scaled up. In this 15-year time period, over 6.2 million malaria deaths have been prevented, primarily among children in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, the global incidence of malaria has fallen by 37% (United Nations 2015).
