Dr Abdisalan Noor leads the Strategic Information for Response unit within WHO’s Global Malaria Programme. He is also the technical lead for the development of the new Global framework for the response to malaria in urban areas.

Malaria is normally considered a disease that impacts people living in rural areas. Why are WHO and UN-Habitat now focusing on malaria in urban settings?

First of all, we know that malaria is and will continue to be a major problem in rural areas. So today and into the future, malaria is likely to be concentrated among rural populations. Having said that, we are also seeing a rapidly urbanizing world in which most people in malaria-affected countries will soon be living in urban areas. If you take the example of Nigeria, which accounts for about a quarter of the global burden of malaria, nearly half of the population is already living in urban areas.