(Yicai) Aug. 19 -- Southeast Asia is waging a battle to eliminate malaria, and China’s strategy and experience in banishing the disease in 2021 is playing an important part in those efforts.

Southeast Asian countries are eager to learn from China how to wipe out malaria, especially how to prevent its recurrence, said Hu Yang, Asia project manager at the Clinton Health Access Initiative, which started its efforts to eradicate malaria in the region more than 10 years ago.

Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia report fewer than 100 malignant malaria cases a year, so there is a good chance of eliminating it by 2030, Gao Qi, a member of the Malaria Policy Advisory Committee at the World Health Organization and head of China’s National Panel of Technical Experts on Malaria Elimination, told Yicai earlier.

International society is providing less assistance to SE Asia because cases are decreasing, so it has become increasingly important to eliminate malaria sustainably and avoid recurrence, Hu pointed out.

China was certified malaria-free by the WHO on June 30, 2021. That achievement followed the country’s so-called 1-3-7 strategy: reporting cases within one day, completing review and epidemiological investigations within three days, and investigating and dealing with epidemic spots within seven days.

Hu said that in Laos, malaria-endemic areas are divided into elimination areas and control areas, and China’s 1-3-7 strategy applied in the elimination areas. Cambodia has adapted the strategy into a 1-7 approach, he said.

China is also providing practical aid to some SE Asian countries. For example, Menghai county in China’s southern Yunnan province supplies Mongla, a township just across the border in Myanmar, with thermal fog machines, mosquito repellents, personal protective equipment, malaria parasite antigen detection kits, and trained medical personnel, said Chen Ran, deputy director of the country’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since 2017, there have been only a few reports of malaria cases in Mongla, Chen noted.

Editor: Futura Costaglione