“Has the boy ever had chucho?” asked Felipe Sanchez, a health worked in Salvador Mazza, Salta, to a boy’s mother who lay sick in her arms one day in 1987. “Chucho” is still a popular name for malaria even today.

Thanks to the international agreements established by PAHO/WHO, and the efforts of the countries in the Americas, the Region’s performance in combating malaria has been outstanding compared with other regions of the world.

The World Health Organization (WHO) today certified Paraguay as having eliminated malaria, the first country in the Americas to be granted this status since Cuba in 1973.