Ministry Of Health Reveals Malaria Cases In Indonesia Drop But Still Second Highest In Asia

Mosquito malaria (Lapathlabs). (ANTARA-pri)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) noted that the decline in the incidence of malaria was around 25 thousand cases in the past year.

However, until now Indonesia still occupies the second highest case in Asia after India.

"Malaria di Indonesia memang termasuk yang tertinggi di Asia, nomor dua setelah India. Kasus malaria di tahun 2023 sebanyak 418.546 kasus, menurun dibanding tahun 2022 yaitu 443.530 kasus," kata Direktur Pencegahan dan Pengendalian Penyakit Menular Kemenkes Imran Pambudi saat dikonfirmasi, Kamis 25 April, disitat Antara.

The World Malaria Report 2023 reports that India and Indonesia still account for about 94 percent of malaria deaths throughout the WHO Southeast Asia region.

However, when viewed in the last decade, malaria cases in Indonesia have actually increased since 2015, which at that time reached 217,025 cases.

According to Imran, the increase in cases was due to the improving system of recording and reporting malaria surveillance in hospitals and health centers, as well as the high increase in the discovery of malaria cases by malaria cadres, especially in high endemic areas.

"In 2023, the number of tests carried out is around 3 million tests, especially for people in high endemic areas," he said.

Imran ensured that the current achievement of the malaria program was still on the right track, as evidenced by the achievement of the malaria elimination target in districts/cities in accordance with the target set in the National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN).

"Where, for example, in 2023 from the target of 385 regencies/cities, malaria elimination will achieve as many as 389 regencies/cities. The 2024 target is 405 and as of March 2024 it reaches 393 regencies/cities that have succeeded in achieving malaria elimination," he said.

His party continues to make efforts to identify low-lying areas to be immediately encouraged to achieve elimination.

But in the future, said Imran, malaria prevention efforts will be more challenging because areas that have not achieved elimination are hard rock areas, where areas that have not achieved elimination are areas that are still endemic to malaria, especially in eastern Indonesia.

According to data from the Ministry of Health, in 2023 418,546 malaria cases were found in Indonesia, 369,119 of which were found in Papua, Central Papua, South Papua, and Papua Mountains.

"The Papua and Nusa Tenggara areas are the areas with the highest malaria cases in Indonesia. In addition, the Sumba area and North Penajam Paser Regency, East Kalimantan are still malaria transmission areas," he said.

"Therefore, because the concentration of cases occurs in Papua, prevention efforts are also prioritized in Papua, by carrying out various interventions to accelerate the decline in cases," said Imran.