World Malaria Report Shows Progress Against Disease: 3.3 Million Lives Saved in Last 13 Years

According to the World Malaria Report 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) notes that close to 3.3 million lives have been saved, with the majority of them being in the 10 countries with the highest malaria burden.

"Investments in malaria country, mostly since 2007, have paid off tremendously," Ray Chambers said, the United Nations Secretary-General's special envoy for malaria according to Reuters.

The report also discusses how child death fell to fewer than 500,000 in 2012.

"This remarkable progress is no cause for complacency: absolute numbers of malaria cases and deaths are not going down as fast as they could," WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said, via a release.

At this time, the highest death and incidence rates for malaria are still in sub-Saharan Africa, with close to 40 percent of malaria deaths and 32 percent of cases reported in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

An estimated 52 nations are on track to cut the incidences by close to 75 percent in the year 2015. However, these nations account for only 4 percent of the total cases, with 80 percent of deaths reported in 17 countries. 

It's estimated that last year alone, there were approximately 207 million cases of malaria, and unfortunately, among those, it caused close to 627,000 deaths.

As officials are currently working on malaria death prevention, the WHO notes that in the last few years, due to decreased funding, there has been a digression regarding the amount of help received.

Fortunately, the health organization estimates a modest funding increase from $2.5 billion to $2.85 billion in 2016.