Africa faces over 500,000 malaria deaths amid worsening climate crisis

Climate change is fueling the malaria surge in Africa, threatening over half a million lives unless urgent action is taken, warns Target Malaria, a not-for-profit international research consortium that aims to co-develop and share novel genetic technologies to help control malaria in Africa.

The consortium said a climate impact model developed by Boston Consulting Group and the Malaria Atlas Project predicts that between 2030 and 2049, climate change is expected to cause 554,000 more malaria deaths than if today's climate remained unchanged. Extreme weather events are expected to drive 92 percent of these additional deaths.

While stepping up malaria control with current tools could reduce the additional deaths, the model predicts that climate change may weaken their impact by up to 17 percent, making progress fragile.

It further predicted that by 2050, climate change will make malaria eradication harder for 75 percent of sub-Saharan Africa's population, equating to 1.3 billion people.

"Shifting temperature and rainfall patterns are expanding and altering malaria risk zones, which will continue to disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, especially children under five," Patric Epopa, a researcher at the Health Sciences Research Institute and Field Entomology Coordinator at Target Malaria Burkina Faso said in a statement on Monday.

Epopa said extreme weather is one of the biggest drivers of malaria spikes, noting that displaced communities are often left unprotected without mosquito nets, indoor spraying, or access to early diagnosis and treatment.

"Without urgent, coordinated action, we risk undoing decades of progress and failing an entire generation of African children," he warned.

According to the World Health Organization, the continent accounted for 95 percent of global malaria cases and 97 percent of global deaths in 2023, which are 251 million infections and nearly 580,000 lives lost, mostly children under five.