The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has disclosed that the Greater Accra Region recorded the lowest prevalence of malaria in the country in 2022.

According to the Service, findings from the 2022 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) indicate that malaria prevalence in children aged 6 to 59 months is 8.6 percent per microscopy results. It revealed that malaria prevalence in rural areas (12.8%) is about three times that of urban (4.3%).

“Greater Accra (2.0%) has the lowest prevalence followed by Western North (4.4%) and Volta (6.4%).”
Ghana Statistical Service

The GSS stated that the regions with the highest prevalence of malaria according to microscopy results are Oti (15.0%), Upper West (13.4%), and the Upper East (12.2%) regions. In all, it noted that half of the 16 regions record malaria prevalence above 10 percent.

“The survey results also indicate that the prevalence of malaria in children has declined over the past eight years, falling by more than a third from 26.7 percent in 2014 to 8.6 percent in 2022.”
Ghana Statistical Survey

Furthermore, the GSS highlighted that administrative data provided by the Ghana Health Service from District Health Information Management System (DHIMS) indicates that the malaria prevalence rate among pregnant women has also declined from 3.3 percent in 2019 to 2.4 percent in 2022.

Additionally, it stated that the malaria prevalence in 2022 is highest in the Oti Region (7.0%) followed by the Savannah Region (5.4%), which are the only two regions to record prevalence more than double the national average. The lowest prevalence in pregnant women, GSS revealed, is recorded in the Greater Accra Region (0.2%).

“Overall, the total number of Outpatient Department (OPD) malaria cases recorded in DHIMS declined from 6.1 million in 2019 to 5.2 million in 2022. The East Mamprusi district in the North East Region (73,782) records the highest number of OPD malaria cases followed by Jaman North (63,776) and Jaman South (55,672) both in the Bono Region. Eight in every 10 districts (211 of 261 districts) districts have more than 10,000 OPD malaria cases in 2022.”
Ghana Statistical Service

The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) released these statistics to mark World Malaria Day today, April 25, 2023. The theme for the year is ‘Time to deliver zero malaria: invest, innovate, implement’.

Meanwhile, the 2022 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey Key Findings Report will be released in May 2023.

Ghana joins global community to mark World Malaria day

Ghana today Tuesday, April 25, 2023, joins the rest of the world to commemorate this year’s World Malaria Day (WMD) celebration. World Malaria Day is a day set aside to highlight the need for continued investment and sustained political commitment to malaria prevention and control of the disease.

The Day, which was instituted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Member States during the World Health Assembly of 2007, is also observed to highlight successes in the fight against malaria, and individual responsibilities to end malaria and ensure a malaria-free world.

Research shows that over the past two decades, the world has made great progress in the malaria fight, saving more than seven million lives, and preventing over one billion malaria cases. Despite the progress made, malaria remains one of the oldest diseases and kills more than 400,000 people, mostly young children, around the world every year.

In recent times, the use of proven tools and methods such as insecticide-treated bed nets, better case management of malaria in children and pregnant women, expanded use of preventative medicine during the high malaria transmission season, and insecticide resistance monitoring has contributed to the reduction of the disease burden in most countries including Ghana.

Research shows that in 2021, there were estimated 247 million cases of malaria worldwide with 619,000 deaths.

Meanwhile, in Ghana’s bid to fight malaria, the country has approved a malaria vaccine from Oxford University, and it is the first African country to ramp up efforts to combat the mosquito-borne disease that kills a child every minute. The effort is one of several focused on addressing the disease that kills over 600,000 each year, most of them children in Africa.

The complicated structure and lifecycle of the malaria parasite has long stymied efforts to develop vaccines.

After decades of work, the first malaria vaccine, Mosquirix from British drugmaker GSK, was last year endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO), but a lack of funding and commercial potential has thwarted the company’s capacity to produce as many doses as needed.

The Oxford vaccine, which has secured regulatory approval in the age group at highest risk of death from malaria – children aged 5 months to 36 months, has a manufacturing advantage thanks to a deal with Serum Institute of India to produce up to 200 million doses annually.