PAPUA New Guinea has reduced its malaria death rate from 13 to one per 100,000 population over 25 years, as shown by national health data.
According to figures from the country’s electronic National Health Information System (eNHIS), total malaria deaths fell from 699 in 2000 to 148 last year, as was presented at the Morobe Health Authority 2025 Review Meeting last week.
PNG carries 90 per cent of all malaria cases in the Western Pacific region, said Morobe malaria coordinator, Lucy Dally.
She explained that the number of confirmed malaria cases fell by 27,703 last year compared to 2024, the first national decline since the country expanded diagnostic testing in 2012.
Confirmed cases peaked at 913, 701 in 2023, then dropped further last year.
She presented that the introduction of Rapid Diagnostic Tests and Artemisinin Combination Therapies in 2012 transformed case detection.
Unconfirmed clinical cases fell from 861,512 in 2012 to just 30,893 last year.
In Morobe, malaria deaths fell from 69 in 2016 to 16 last year, a 77 per cent reduction.
Dally attributed this decline directly to improved coordination between health teams working across the system.
“The decrease in malaria-related deaths is due to different parties working together. The surveillance team picks up information and informs the malaria team, who then takes action,” she said.
She added that the speed of information that flowed between the surveillance and response teams was critical to preventing deaths.
“No one should die from malaria if we all play our part,” he said.
This year, provincial health teams distributed RDTs, medicines, and insecticide-treated nets to 60 health facilities across five districts in the province.
Thirty-five of these were visited in person. Microscopy services operate at nine sites. Home management of malaria is available at 12 facilities across the five districts.
The national strategy aims to reduce malaria cases by 63 per cent and malaria-related deaths by 90 per cent, with the main goal of eliminating malaria fatalities. At least 95 per cent of confirmed cases are expected to receive first-line treatment, and 95 per cent of the population are expected to use insecticide-treated nets nightly.
The response is guided by the PNG Malaria Strategic Plans for 2021-2025 and 2026-2031, the National Health Plan for 2021-2030 and the Global Strategic Plan for Malaria for 2016-2030.
