WHO declares Sri Lanka malaria-free in 'truly remarkable' achievement
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared Sri Lanka free of malaria, hailing it as a "remarkable public health achievement" for the Indian Ocean island, once one of the most affected nations in the world. The WHO said Sri Lanka had become the second country in the region to eliminate the mosquito-borne disease after Maldives with no locally transmitted cases of malaria in Sri Lanka in the last three and a half years. The WHO attributed the South Asian country's success to a strategy that deployed mobile clinics, boosted public health awareness campaigns and intensively targeted the parasite, as well as the mosquito.