Invasive mosquito species threatens India’s 2030 malaria elimination goal

Invasive mosquito species threatens India’s 2030 malaria elimination goal

India’s malaria cases fell from 11.7 lakh in 2015 to about 2.27 lakh in 2024.

Urban malaria, driven largely by the spread of the invasive vector Anopheles stephensi in metropolitan areas such as Delhi, has emerged as a national concern threatening India’s goal of eliminating the mosquito-borne disease by 2030, according to the Health Ministry’s recently released “Malaria elimination technical report, 2025”.

The report said asymptomatic infections, difficult terrain, and population movement continued to drive transmission, while high-burden pockets persisted in the districts of Odisha, Tripura, and Mizoram. Cross-border transmission from Myanmar and Bangladesh continued to affect border districts in northeastern India.

Besides the malaria elimination goal, the country has assigned itself an intermediate goal of achieving zero indigenous cases by 2027, aligning with the World Health Organization’s global strategy.

Anopheles stephensi is a mosquito species, now recognised as an invasive threat due to its ability to thrive in urban environments, that breed in artificial containers (tanks, tyres), and efficiently transmit the Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax parasites, challenging current malaria control efforts worldwide. In India, urban transmission presents unique challenges related to container breeding, construction sites, informal settings, high population density and fragmented healthcare delivery, necessitating city-specific vector control and surveillance strategies.

“Strengthening surveillance systems, enhancing vector monitoring and improving supply chain reliability emerged as the top priorities,’’ the report noted.

High-burden pockets

While India has now largely entered the pre-elimination phase, malaria is no longer uniformly distributed across large geographical areas, the report said. Instead, the disease persists in limited pockets shaped by local ecological conditions, human mobility, occupational exposure, health-system access, and vector dynamics. The report added that active surveillance has been intensified in tribal and forest areas, border regions, and migratory population settings, where residual transmission risks remain high.

Drop in cases

India has reduced its malaria burden significantly over the past decade, and the number of cases has dropped from 11.7 lakh in 2015 to around 2.27 lakh in 2024, with deaths reducing by 78%. Key challenges that need urgent attention include inconsistent private-sector reporting, limited entomological capacity, drug and insecticide resistance, operational gaps in remote tribal areas, and sporadic shortages of diagnostics and treatment commodities.

Operational research has emerged as a key enabler for elimination acceleration, the report said.