“Exceptional” weather events in Malawi have caused a significant surge in both malaria infections and deaths, according to a global health leader speaking in anticipation of World Malaria Day on April 25th.
Peter Sands, the head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, revealed that Cyclone Freddy, which hit the region in March, brought about an amount of rainfall that is typically seen over a six-month period, but in just six days. This extreme weather event caused a sharp increase in malaria cases in the area.
Despite some headway in the battle against malaria, the WHO emphasized that one child still succumbs to the disease every minute.
As of 2021, the WHO reported that there were roughly 247 million recorded cases of malaria across the world, with approximately 619,000 fatalities attributable to the disease.
Encouragingly, there have been significant scientific advances in the field, with over a million children in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi receiving the RTS, S vaccine developed by the British pharmaceutical company GSK.