section_path: Eradication efforts
section_name: Eradication efforts
paragraph_text: Eradication efforts
  
  Malaria has been successfully eliminated or significantly reduced in certain areas, but not globally. Malaria was once common in the United States, but the US eliminated malaria from most parts of the country in the early 20th century using vector control programs, which combined the monitoring and treatment of infected humans, draining of wetland breeding grounds for agriculture and other changes in water management practices, and advances in sanitation, including greater use of glass windows and screens in dwellings. The use of the pesticide DDT and other means eliminated malaria from the remaining pockets in southern states of the US in the 1950s, as part of the National Malaria Eradication Program. Most of Europe, North America, Australia, North Africa and the Caribbean, and parts of South America, Asia and Southern Africa have also eliminated malaria. The WHO defines "elimination" (or "malaria-free") as having no domestic transmission (indigenous cases) for the past three years. They also define "pre-elimination" and "elimination" stages when a country has fewer than 5 or 1, respectively, cases per 1000 people at risk per year. In 2021, the total of international and national funding for malaria control and elimination was $3.5 billion—only half of what is estimated to be needed. According to UNICEF, to achieve the goal of a malaria-free world, annual funding would need to more than double to reach the US$6.8 billion target.
  
  In parts of the world with rising living standards, the elimination of malaria was often a collateral benefit of the introduction of window screens and improved sanitation. A variety of usually simultaneous interventions represents best practice. These include antimalarial drugs to prevent or treat infection; improvements in public health infrastructure to diagnose, sequester and treat infected individuals; bednets and other methods intended to keep mosquitoes from biting humans; and vector control strategies such as larvaciding with insecticides, ecological controls such as draining mosquito breeding grounds or introducing fish to eat larvae and indoor residual spraying (IRS) with insecticides.