The parasitic mosquito-borne disease is both preventable and curable, but it remains a serious and deadly global health threat – claiming hundreds of thousands of lives – mostly among young children and pregnant women, predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa.
WHO’s latest annual update shows impressive progress since 2000: intervention has saved an estimated 14 million lives worldwide over the past quarter century, and 47 countries are certified malaria-free.
Nevertheless, malaria remains a deadly concern. There were more than 280 million malaria cases and over 600,000 malaria deaths in 2024, with 95 percent of cases concentrated in the Africa region – most in just 11 countries.
The resistance increases
A major stumbling block to the elimination of malaria is the issue of drug resistance, which warrants a separate chapter in this year’s survey: eight countries reported confirmed or suspected antimalarial drug resistance, including artemisinin, a WHO-recommended treatment.
To combat this, the report recommends that countries avoid over-reliance on a single drug while opting for better monitoring and regulatory health systems.
Underfunding – in a region rife with conflict, climate inequality and fragile health systems – is another major reason.
About $3.9 billion was invested in the response by 2024, less than half of the target set by the WHO.
The report highlights that overseas development assistance (ODA) from wealthy countries has fallen by around 21 per cent. Without more investment, the authors say, there is a risk of a massive, uncontrolled resurgence of the disease.
‘The red lights are flashing’
“Malaria is still a preventable and treatable disease, but it may not last forever,” warned Dr. Martin Fitchet, executive director of the Medicines for Malaria Venture, a non-profit organization focused on providing new antimalarial drugs, at a WHO press briefing to preview the report.
“We need to act now to increase the scale and coordination of surveillance so we don’t fly blind and invest boldly in the innovation of the next generation of medicine so the parasite doesn’t get ahead of us.”
Dr. Fitchet raised the specter of the crisis that resulted from resistance to the malaria drug chloroquine in the 1980s and 1990s.
On April 25, 2022, a close-up of vials of the malaria vaccine at a government cold storage facility in Lilongwe, Malawi.
This led to a humanitarian disaster with the loss of millions of lives, especially children.
“Today we can see from this report that the red lights are flashing again with an increasing number of resistant mutations appearing on the African continent. We must ensure that we prolong the resistance and effectiveness of the medicine we have now.
“However, our long-term resilience and eventual victory in the fight against malaria depends on the development of the next generation of anti-malarial drugs.”
He said that “the complexity and scale of the challenge we face means that no single tool or actor can succeed alone,” he concluded, calling for partnerships that span the entire human health sector, including “industry, global health agencies, academia, physicians, investigators, civil society, local communities and funders.”
