A World Health Organization report published to mark World Malaria Day says six countries in Africa could be free of the disease by 2020. 

The organization's 2016-2030 program against malaria aims to wipe out the disease in at least 10 countries by the end of this decade. The WHO estimates that 21 countries, including six countries on the African continent, are capable of achieving this goal.

South Africa registered 11,700 cases of the disease in 2014, down from 64-thousand in 2000. Some 214 million people across the world suffered from malaria last year, and 438,000 died from the disease. Nine out of 10 deaths in 2015 reportedly occurred in sub-Saharan Africa.