New malaria-prevention tools helped avert about 170 million malaria cases and about 1 million deaths in 2024, according to the latest update from World Health Organization (WHO).
Despite that achievement, malaria remains a massive global burden — in 2024 there were an estimated 282 million malaria cases and 610,000 deaths, with around 95% of deaths occurring in the WHO African Region, most among children under five.
The recent progress was driven by expanded deployment of newer tools: dual-ingredient insecticide bed nets, broader roll-out of WHO-recommended malaria vaccines (now part of routine immunisation in 24 countries), and wider use of seasonal malaria chemoprevention, which reached 54 million children globally in 2024 (up from just 0.2 million in 2012).
Yet the fight against malaria is under threat. Growing resistance to antimalarial drugs — especially to those based on artemisinin, once the backbone of malaria treatment — has now been confirmed or is suspected in at least eight African countries.
Additional challenges include declining effectiveness of rapid diagnostic tests (due to parasite gene mutations), loss of efficacy of certain insecticide-treated nets (because of insecticide resistance in mosquitoes), spread of mosquito species more adapted to urban habitats, climatic changes that expand mosquito breeding zones, and global under-funding of malaria control efforts.
WHO warns that unless countries increase political commitment, fund malaria programmes adequately, and accelerate the development and deployment of next-generation medicines and prevention tools, recent gains could be reversed — jeopardising the long-term goal of a malaria-free world.
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