Abstract

For centuries, malaria has remained a serious public health problem among the human population living in different malaria-transmission settings in sub-Saharan Africa. This region carries almost 90% of all global cases of malaria. Currently, a number of reports indicate that the population of malaria vectors and the percentage of malaria cases are declining in sub-Saharan Africa. The reports further indicate that the significant reductions of malaria morbidity and mortality are more observed in high-risk groups, including pregnant women and children under the age of 5. The decline in malaria prevalence and transmission has been reported mostly in areas that received massive distributions of malaria-intervention tools and in areas where clinical trials have been conducted. However, the main challenges facing the success stories of malaria control in sub-Saharan
Africa are the sustainability of the intervention programs, increase of malarial vector population, and malarial parasites’ resistance to insecticides, and artemisinin-based combination therapy. Here, we discuss a number of factors which in one way or another may potentially affect the gains so far achieved in the control of malaria in Africa.