Indonesia hopes to reduce its malaria mortality rate to zero and control the spread of the disease now affecting almost three quarters of the country's territory.

Efforts to tackle the mosquito-borne disease have been effective, as shown by the steady decline of fatality rates over the last three years, but President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Thursday this was not enough.

"We should not be content with decreasing numbers. We have to strive to reach a zero fatality," Yudhoyono said.

"I call on health officers to work hard by conducting effective and concrete measures to fight malaria," Yudhoyono said at the inaugural commemoration of World Malaria Day, which falls on April 25.

Latest figures from the Health Ministry revealed that malaria was responsible for 0.92 percent of recorded deaths in 2005. This rate declined to 0.42 percent in 2006 and to 0.2 last year.

"The disease reemerged recently because of climatic changes which have widened mosquitoes' breeding areas. Heads of districts and subdistricts much now pay greater attention to the cleanliness of their neighborhoods," he said.

Yudhoyono asked health officers to increase public awareness of the disease by improving education and information.

Malaria had infected 15 million people in Indonesia as of 2001, killing approximately 38,000 people each year, Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said.

"Malaria remains one the most contagious diseases in Indonesia. It is not only fatal, but also decreases the quality of human resources. This will hamper the national development," she said.

Some 45 percent of the Indonesian population of 230 million were at risk of infection, Siti said. This figure accounted for around 3 percent of the annual 500 million malaria infections globally.

"In Indonesia, 424 of 576 regencies nationwide are considered as malaria endemic areas, with most cases found in Papua," she said.

The disease is transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito carrying Plasmodium parasites.

At the event, Yudhoyono signed over some 2.1 million packages of long-lasting insecticidal mosquito nets and 127,000 packages of anti-malaria drugs to governors of malaria-prone provinces comprising Papua, West Papua, Maluku, North Maluku, North Sumatra, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam and East Nusa Tenggara.

The event was also marked with the inauguration of a new building for malaria in-patients at Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital in Central Jakarta.

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