Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen on Monday called on all stakeholders to strengthen cooperation based on trust, people-centered partnerships, and multilateralism in order to achieve the global vision of malaria-free by 2025.
In a pre-recorded video statement delivered to the International Forum on the 50th Anniversary of the Discovery of Artemisinin and on Building a Global Community of Health for All, which was held in Beijing, Hun Sen expressed his full support for all activities and cooperation that had been undertaken to build a global community of health for all, especially the eradication of malaria through the use of artemisinin.
Artemisinin was the first special antimalarial drug discovered and successfully extracted by China and it has saved millions of lives, especially in developing countries.
Hun Sen said Cambodia used to have more than 170,000 malaria cases and nearly 1,000 deaths in the 1980s, but in 2021, the number of malaria cases had dropped to 3,959 with no death in the last four years, despite the hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said artemisinin is efficacious against malaria.
“For the future direction, Cambodia will strengthen cooperation with all stakeholders, particularly, the People’s Republic of China, through the Belt and Road Initiative, the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation, and China’s South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund in order to fully eradicate malaria (by 2025),” he said. (ANI/Xinhua)
