China has made tremendous progress toward malaria elimination in the past two decades, with just 2,921 cases reported in 2014. Plasmodium vivax and P. falciparum are both major plasmodium species, though P. vivax is predominant and accounts for 88% of malaria cases. Malaria has been eliminated from most of the country; the remaining at-risk areas are in Tibet and Yunnan Province in the south where local transmission still occurs. There were 24 malaria-related deaths in 2014, a 42% increase from the 14 deaths reported in 2012, although most deaths in recent years can be attributed to imported P. falciparum.
Due to China’s vast size and varying climate, malaria transmission differs throughout the country. The primary vectors are Anopheles sinensis and An. anthropophagus, found mainly in the central and northern regions and associated with P. vivax transmission, and An. minimus and An. dirus, found mainly in the southern regions and associated with P. falciparum transmission.
- Total population: 1.4 billion
- 57 cases of malaria and 24 deaths in 2015
- 0.000004 Annual Parasite Index (cases/1,000 population/year)
- Dominant malaria species: P. falciparum
- Elimination goal: zero indigenous cases and zero deaths by 2020