By Pratik Jain
(Reuters) – The world is closer than ever to losing the fight against malaria, a leading global health figure warned, as a World Health Organization report published on Thursday showed cases rising amid a huge funding gap.
With 249 million malaria cases reported in 2022, this means roughly 5 million more people got sick with the disease that year over the previous year.
Pandemic-related disruptions and extreme weather events linked to climate change have recently hindered the fight against the mosquito-borne disease, but progress has been stalling since 2015 due to rising drug and insecticide resistance and geopolitical conflicts, the report said.
“More than ever, we are at risk of losing our fight against this disease,” said Peter Sands, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The floods in Pakistan last year, for example, led to a five-fold increase in malaria cases in the country, the report showed.
In 2022, the global malaria case incidence was 58.4 cases per 1,000 people who are deemed to be at risk, versus WHO’s target of 26.2 cases by 2025. Progress towards the 2025 milestone is now 55% off track, the global health body said in the report.
“The report reveals that progress has ground to a halt, and in some places is reversing,” Sands said. “Unless we take action now, malaria could resurge dramatically, wiping out the hard-won gains of the last two decades.”
Malaria deaths declined steadily between 2000 and 2019, from 864,000 to 576,000. They rose during the pandemic, and an estimated 608,000 people died of the disease last year, mainly young children.
However, there is some hope offered by two new malaria vaccines, both of which are due to be available next year.
(Reporting by Pratik Jain and Jennifer Rigby; Editing by Pooja Desai)
