Malaria Facts
Illness and Deaths
- Every thirty seconds, a child in Africa dies from malaria. 3,000 children a day.
- Malaria kills more than one million people a year.
- Worldwide, malaria causes approximately 350 to 500 million illnesses.
- Annual economic loss in Africa due to malaria is estimated to be $12 billion, representing a crippling 1.3 percent annual loss in GDP growth in endemic countries.
- Malaria-endemic countries allocate significant resources to malaria:
- 40% of health expenditures
- 20-45% of hospital admissions
- 50% of outpatient visits
- Malaria was a health problem in the U.S., primarily in the southeast, until about 1950. Since then, the U.S. has been free of malaria.
- Half a century ago, Malaria was successfully eradicated in Caribbean Islands, the Balkans, several Western European countries, Taiwan and the South Pacific.
- Malaria can be prevented and treated through a comprehensive approach that involves long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets, eliminating mosquito breeding areas, selective indoor residual spraying, medicines for treatment, and education.
Preventing Malaria is Crucial to Improving Maternal and Child Health
With children and pregnant women highly vulnerable to malaria, malaria control must be the cornerstone of any successful maternal and child health program.
- Each year 10,000 pregnant women and 200,000 of their infants die as a result of malaria infection during pregnancy.
- Malaria accounts for nearly 20 percent of under-five mortality in Africa. In fact, Malaria kills more African children than any other disease, resulting in one death every 30 seconds.
- Deaths result not only from the infection with the malaria parasite directly, but also from the severe anemia and malnutrition that follows. Anemia contributes to more than half of malaria deaths in women and children.
If we can lift the burden of malaria off of child and maternal mortality in Africa, health care workers can focus on other pressing needs.
- Insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) have been shown to reduce all-cause mortality in children under five by at least 20 percent.
- In areas of high malaria transmission, use of ITNs by pregnant women has been associated with reductions in the incidence of the malaria parasite of close to 40%. Malarial anemia has been reduced by close to 50%, and the prevalence of low birth weight reduced by nearly 30%.
Progress Being Made
- According to a 2008 World Health Organization (WHO) report, widespread use of long-lasting insecticide treated bed nets and access to malaria drugs can cut malaria-related deaths by more than half among children in the hardest-hit countries of Africa.
- In Rwanda, malaria deaths dropped 66% and incidence dropped 64% between 2005 and 2007.
- In Ethiopia, malaria deaths dropped 51% and incidence dropped 60% between 2005 and 2007. Ethiopia has distributed nearly of 20 million bed nets since 2005.
- In 2003, less than 5% of households owned a single treated bed net.
- Soon, every household in a malaria-endemic area will own two LLINs.
- Kenya, 2006 – 3.4 million insecticide-treated bed nets distributed over four days
- 10-fold increase in children sleeping under nets
- 44% fewer deaths among protected children
- Zanzibar, Tanzania, 2006 – 100% availability of ACTs and 90% bed net coverage.
- Malaria attributed deaths in children under 5 dropped 75%
- Malaria-related clinic visits down 77%
- Bed nets expected to save 2,000 children’s lives in the next three years