Cape Verde becomes third African country to eliminate malaria

Cape Verde was certified as malaria-free on Friday by the World Health Organization, only the third African country to have achieved this milestone. The Atlantic archipelago of about 500,000 inhabitants follows Mauritius in 1973 and Algeria in 2019.
Since the last peak in the late 1980s, malaria in Cape Verde has been confined to two islands: Santiago and Boa Vista, which have now both been malaria-free since 2017. Eliminating malaria became a national objective in 2007, leading to a strategic malaria plan from 2009 to 2013.
The plan focused on expanded diagnosis, early and effective treatment, and the reporting and investigating of all cases, the WHO said, adding that Cape Verde authorities kept up their vigilance during the Covid-19 pandemic. The WHO estimates that malaria killed 608,000 people worldwide and infected 250 million in 2022.