Egypt has been certified malaria-free by the World Health Organization (WHO) - an achievement hailed by the UN public health agency as "truly historic".

"Malaria is as old as Egyptian civilization itself, but the disease that plagued pharaohs now belongs to its history," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Egyptian authorities launched their first efforts to stamp out the deadly mosquito-borne infectious disease nearly 100 years.

Certification is granted when a country proves that the transmission chain is interrupted for at least the previous three consecutive years. Malaria kills at least 600,000 people every year, nearly all of them in Africa.

In a statement on Sunday, the WHO praised "the Egyptian government and people" for their efforts to "end a disease that has been present in the country since ancient times".

It said Egypt was the third country to be certified in the WHO's Eastern Mediterranean Region, following the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.

Globally, 44 countries and one territory have reached this milestone.

But the WHO said the certification was only "the beginning of a new phase", urging Egypt to be on the alert to preserve its malaria-free status.

To get the WHO certification, a country must demonstrate the capacity to prevent the re-establishment of transmission.

The UN public health agency said first efforts to limit human-mosquito contact in Egypt began in the 1920s when it banned rice cultivation and agricultural crops near homes.

Malaria is caused by a complex parasite which is spread by mosquito bites.

Vaccines are now being used in some places - but monitoring the disease and avoiding mosquito bites are the most effective ways to prevent malaria.

Holy frick do I hate insurance companies and Ambulance chasing injury lawyers!

If it were up to me, I'd force everyone to operate under a province wide public insurance crown corporation.

In a blockbuster ruling Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the conviction of actor Jussie Smollett for an alleged hoax hate crime, a move that will spare the former "Empire" star a five-month jail sentence.

Smollett had challenged nearly every aspect of his case, arguing that his legal woes should have been over after the Cook County State's Attorney's office struck a controversial deal to drop charges just a month after Smollett was indicted in February 2019.

The agreement should have prevented Smollett from being charged for the same crime by a court-appointed special prosecutor a year later, according to the state's highest court.

In a 5-0 opinion, with two justices abstaining, Justice Elizabeth M. Rocheford wrote the second case violated Smollett's due process rights because he had fulfilled the requirements of his earlier plea deal by turning over his $10,000 bond and doing community service.

In January 2019, actor Jussie Smollett told police he had been the victim of a hate crime. His account of what happened that night has been disputed, resulting in a messy, public legal battle with the city of Chicago and a 2022 sentence to five months in jail. Read all of the Sun-Times' coverage here.

"We are aware that this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust," Rocheford wrote in the 32-page ruling. "Nevertheless, what would be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal case would be a holding from this court that the State was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally relied."

Smollett served six days of a five-month jail sentence in 2022, before being released to wait out his appeals. An appeals court last year upheld Smollett's sentence on felony counts related to lying to police about an attack he and two accomplices allegedly staged near his Streeterville apartment.

He was also sentenced to serve more than two years probation and repay the city of Chicago nearly $130,000 spent on overtime for police working a case that captivated national attention.

The court ruled that a controversial decision by prosecutors to drop all charges against Smollett amounted to a plea deal, and that the case brought by a special prosecutor a year later was invalid.