PHNOM PENH, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia has reported zero death from malaria in 2018, achieving its self-imposed target three years earlier, Huy Rekol, director of the National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control, said Wednesday.

"In 2017, there was one death, but in 2018, there was no any death from malaria, meaning that we have achieved success three years earlier than the target of zero death in 2020," he said during the center's annual conference in Siem Reap province.

According to Rekol, despite no fatal case, the Southeast Asian country reported 65,114 malaria cases last year, up 41.6 percent from the year before.

Luciano Tuseo, the representative of the World Health Organization in Cambodia, congratulated Cambodia for the reduction of malaria mortality to zero for the first time in 2018.

"I do hope and encourage all partners continue to work closely, under the leadership of the Ministry of Health, to ensure synergies, to enhance coordination and collaboration, and to provide necessary support to the central and local governments and communities so that we altogether can reach the elimination goal in the near future," he said.

Cambodia launched in 2016 a 142-million-U.S.-dollars five-year plan to eliminate the death from malaria by 2020 and set a target to wipe out all malaria cases by 2025.

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease, which is often found in rainy seasons and mostly happens in forest and mountainous provinces.

To prevent the disease, people living in malaria-prone areas need to sleep under insecticide-treated mosquito nets all the time.