Malaria deaths rise by 69,000 in 2020 due to COVID-19 disruptions

Dakar, Dec. 7 / BNA / The World Health Organization said on Monday that health care disruptions linked to the coronavirus epidemic helped malaria kill 69,000 people in 2020 compared to the previous year, but the worst case scenario was averted.

The World Health Organization said in its annual report on malaria that a total of 627,000 people worldwide – mostly children in Africa’s poorest regions – died last year, compared to 558,000 in 2019.

This number exceeds the number of people reported to have died of coronavirus in Africa since the start of the pandemic.

About two-thirds of additional malaria deaths in 2020 were due to coronavirus restrictions that disrupt malaria prevention, diagnosis and treatment, the World Health Organization said.

But efforts to maintain health services despite the challenges mean that sub-Saharan Africa has not seen the doubling of malaria deaths in 2020 that the World Health Organization has warned is likely to occur.

Instead, the number of deaths in the region increased by 12% compared to 2019, according to data from the World Health Organization.

“Thanks to the urgent and painstaking efforts, we can say that the world has avoided the worst-case scenario for malaria deaths,” said Pedro Alonso, director of the WHO’s Global Malaria Programme.

Experts hope the fight against malaria will gain significant ground after the World Health Organization recommended in October that the RTS or S vaccine — or Mosquirix — developed by British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline should be given widely to children in Africa.

“With increased funding, access to life-saving tools, and robust innovation in new tools to stay on the cutting edge of cutting-edge mosquitoes and parasites, we can accelerate transformative work and eliminate malaria within a generation,” said Abderrahmane Diallo, CEO of RBM. Partnership to End Malaria Advocacy Group.

“We are now at a critical juncture, and I urge world leaders to renew their commitment and investment,” he said in a statement.

HF