Georgia became the 45th country to be certified malaria free on January 23, 2025, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) announcement.
According to WHO, to achieve certification, a country must prove “beyond reasonable doubt, that the chain of indigenous transmission has been interrupted nationwide for at least the previous three consecutive years.”
Georgia struggled with malaria for decades. “In the early 1900s, at least 3 malaria parasite species—P. falciparum, P. malariae and P. vivax—were endemic in the country.” 30% of the country’s inhabitants had P. vivax malaria in the 1920s.
Infection control efforts helped lower cases, but World War II halted progress. After the war, a new campaign “successfully interrupted the transmission of P. falciparum by 1953, P. malariae by 1960 and P. vivax by 1970.”
The country was free of malaria for 25 years. In 2002, transmission began again “with 474 cases reported.” Georgia and “9 other countries in the WHO European Region” signed the Tashkent Declaration in 2005, according to WHO. “The intensified interventions that followed significantly reduced malaria incidence in Georgia, with the last indigenous case recorded in 2009. By 2015, all 53 countries of the WHO European Region, including Georgia, reported zero indigenous cases of malaria.”
Additionally, “the original signatories of the Tashkent Declaration issued the Ashgabat Statement in 2017 committing to take all efforts to remain malaria-free. Türkiye is the only country in the WHO European Region remaining to be certified.”