WHO: There will be more malaria victims in sub-Saharan Africa than the coronavirus

The death toll from malaria in sub-Saharan Africa will far exceed the death toll from COVID-19, as a coronavirus pandemic disrupted services to combat this mosquito-borne infectious disease. It said this Monday in its annual report on malaria from the World Health Organization.

Malaria killed more than 409,000 people around the world last year, mostly children in poorer parts of Africa, the report said. According to her, the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic will almost certainly lead to an increase in malaria deaths this year, Reuters reports.

Pedro Alsonso, director of the WHO Malaria Program, told reporters that the increase could reach between 20,000 and 100,000 deaths in sub-Saharan Africa compared to previous years. According to him, it is very likely that it will be higher than COVID-directed mortality.

In 2019, they recorded around 229 million cases of malaria worldwide, which is at the level recorded for four years. However, after a downward trend over the past two years, the death toll has stagnated: after dropping from 736,000 deaths in 2000, malaria claimed 411,000 deaths in 2018 and 409,000 in 2019, according to AFP.

According to a WHO report, many countries continued to fight the disease vigorously, despite unprecedented difficulties with the novel coronavirus pandemic. However, long-term success in eradicating malaria in one generation is far from certain.

Due to the continuing transmission of malaria by mosquitoes in many parts of the world, half of the world’s population is at risk of infection and the disease still kills an average of one child every two minutes. However, the focus of funding and attention has shifted elsewhere, increasing the likelihood of preventable infant deaths.

Peter Sands, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, called the findings of the WHO report extremely timely.

“The global health world, the media and politics are overwhelmed by COVID … yet we pay very little attention to the disease, which continues to kill more than 400,000 people every year, mostly children.” he told reporters during the briefing. “And to remind you, this is a disease we know how to get rid of, so it’s a choice not to.” dodal Sands.