A recent World Health Organization (WHO) global malaria report presents a dual narrative of significant progress and persistent challenges in the fight against the disease. The data reveals a devastating concentration of the malaria burden, with an estimated 95% of all fatalities occurring within the WHO African Region, predominantly affecting children under five years of age.
Despite this sobering reality, the expanded deployment of innovative interventions has yielded substantial positive outcomes. The widespread introduction of new tools, including dual-ingredient insecticide-treated nets and malaria vaccines, proved highly effective in 2024, preventing an estimated 170 million infections and averting approximately one million deaths. A key preventive strategy, seasonal malaria chemoprevention, has seen remarkable growth. Now implemented across 20 nations, this approach reached 54 million children in 2024—a dramatic surge from a mere 200,000 children covered in 2012.
Certification milestones further underscore the global advancement. To date, the WHO has officially recognized 47 countries and one territory as malaria-free. Cabo Verde and Egypt attained this esteemed status in 2024, with Georgia, Suriname, and Timor-Leste joining their ranks in 2025.
However, the report sounds a strong alarm on emerging threats that jeopardize these gains. A growing resistance to antimalarial medications is significantly impeding elimination efforts. WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasized this precarious balance, stating, ‘New tools for malaria prevention give us new hope, but we still face significant challenges.’ He specifically warned that rising case numbers and mortality rates, compounded by the escalating drug resistance threat and the repercussions of funding cuts, risk reversing the hard-won progress achieved over the last twenty years. Consequently, a central objective of the Global Malaria Technical Strategy 2016–2030—the radical reduction of malaria deaths—remains distressingly out of reach.