June 30, 2025
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently certified Suriname as malaria-free, marking the first time a country in the Amazon region has achieved this designation. The milestone follows a 70-year national effort to eliminate the disease.
WHO credited Suriname’s long-term investments in surveillance, early diagnosis and treatment with helping the country reduce its malaria burden from a peak of about 15,000 annual cases in 2001 to just one case of Plasmodium vivax malaria in 2021. The last locally transmitted case of Plasmodium falciparum malaria occurred in 2018.
Countries are eligible for malaria-free certification when they have proven, beyond reasonable doubt, that indigenous malaria transmission has been interrupted nationwide for at least the past three consecutive years. They must also have a national surveillance system capable of rapidly detecting and responding to any malaria cases and an effective program to prevent re-establishment of the disease.
WHO has now certified 46 countries and one territory as malaria-free, including 12 in the Region of the Americas.
AABB encourages members to review the Emerging Infectious Diseases Fact Sheets for additional information about malaria, including its causative Plasmodium species, transmission risks, donor screening criteria and prevention strategies.
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