Malaria cases and deaths rise following Covid disruption
The number of malaria cases in 2020 was 14m higher than the previous year and led to 69,000 more deaths, the World Health Organization has said, highlighting the disruption to healthcare systems caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The global health body, in a report published on Monday, said there were an estimated 241m cases globally last year and 627,000 deaths. About two-thirds of the 69,000 additional deaths were linked to problems in the provision of malaria prevention, diagnosis and treatment during the pandemic, it said.
“While African countries rallied to the challenge and averted the worst predictions of fallout from Covid-19, the pandemic’s knock-on effect still translates to thousands of lives lost to malaria,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, said global gains against malaria had “levelled off” even before the pandemic.
The findings of the report add to increasing evidence that a number of conditions — both infectious, such as tuberculosis, and non-infectious, such as cancer — have not received adequate attention during the pandemic because resources have been diverted to tackle coronavirus.
But crucially, the WHO added, the situation could have been far worse.
The WHO had, at the beginning of the pandemic, projected that malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, where the heaviest burden of disease is concentrated, could double in 2020. But the worst-case scenario did not materialise.
Some countries, including China, El Salvador and Iran, saw substantial progress in tackling the mosquito-borne infection, the WHO noted.
And, last month, the health body backed wide deployment of an anti-malaria vaccine, a first in combating the disease.
The WHO warned, however, that the world was behind the organisation’s targets for the management of malaria. Case incidence was 59 cases per 1,000 people at risk — off track by 40 per cent; and the mortality rate was 15.3 deaths per 100,000 people at risk — off track by 44 per cent.
The health body said achieving its goals, including a 90 per cent reduction in global malaria incidence and mortality by 2030, would require new strategies, as well as more than triple the current funding, which stood at about $3.3bn in 2020.
“African governments and their partners need to intensify their efforts so that we do not lose even more ground to this preventable disease,” said Moeti.