Malaria deaths, cases surged in 2024 with gains at stake - Report

Malaria killed around 610,000 people in 2024, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.

Most of the fatalities occured in sub-Saharan Africa, with children constituting the majority of the victims.

Case numbers also went up from 273 million to an estimated 282 million, according to the WHO’s annual malaria report.

The agency cited rising drug resistance, climate change and funding cuts as some of the contributing factors.

It warned that the progress achieved in the early 2000s was at risk of being rolled back. Ethiopia, Madagascar and Yemen have especially seen a surge in cases.

Malaria is caused by a parasite that spreads through mosquito bites.

The medical battle against it has ebbed and flowed, as new drugs come along, but the parasite gradually develops the ability to resist them.

At the beginning of this century, for example, resistance to the drug chloroquine was widespread and malaria killed more than 1.8 million people per year.

But then came a class of drugs known as artemisinins, which helped drive a dramatic decline in global malaria death rates. Artemisinin-based compounds remain the first-line treatment in most cases.