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NEW DELHI: India’s malaria burden has shrunk sharply over the past decade and is now increasingly confined to specific districts and pockets, particularly in parts of Mizoram and Tripura, even as most of the country moves closer to elimination, according to the Malaria Elimination Technical Report 2025. The report notes a clear geographic contraction of malaria transmission. While multiple states and Union territories accounted for high malaria burden in 2015, sustained interventions have pushed most regions into low- or very low-transmission categories. What remains, the report stresses, is focal transmission concentrated in select districts, mainly in forested, tribal, and border areas.National data reflect the scale of progress. Reported malaria cases declined from about 11.7 lakh in 2015 to around 2.27 lakh in 2023, a reduction of nearly 80%, while deaths fell from 384 to 83 during the same period. These gains have moved India firmly into a high-impact, low-transmission phase, the report says.Several states that once contributed heavily to the national caseload — including Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Meghalaya — have seen sustained declines and are no longer categorised as high-burden at the state level. Other regions such as the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, and Dadra & Nagar Haveli are now reporting only sporadic cases. At the same time, the report cautions that remaining malaria transmission is increasingly heterogeneous, with clusters persisting in difficult-to-reach districts. In the Northeast, districts in Mizoram and Tripura continue to report malaria due to a combination of factors such as forest cover, cross-border movement, seasonal migration, and challenges in early diagnosis and follow-up.Elimination gains are already visible at the local level. Ladakh, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry reported zero indigenous malaria cases, while 122 districts nationwide recorded no malaria cases in 2023, indicating that district-level elimination is advancing faster than statewide milestones.However, as case numbers decline, the report flags new risks. Asymptomatic infections, reduced vigilance, and the emergence of urban malaria linked to construction activity and mosquito breeding in cities could threaten progress if surveillance weakens. The final phase, experts warn, will require precision rather than scale.India has set a national target to eliminate malaria by 2030, with some states aiming to achieve zero transmission earlier. The report concludes that while malaria is no longer a nationwide threat, finishing the job will depend on sustained surveillance, district-specific strategies, and uninterrupted funding in the remaining high-risk pockets.
