WHO: COVID disruption resulted in 63,000 more malaria deaths

The coronavirus pandemic interrupted efforts to control malaria, resulting in 63,000 additional deaths and 13 million more infections globally over two years, according to a report from the World Health Organization published Thursday.

Cases of the parasitic disease went up in 2020 and continued to climb in 2021, though at a slower pace, the U.N. health agency said Thursday. About 95% of the world’s 247 million malaria infections and 619,000 deaths last year were in Africa.

“We were off track before the pandemic and the pandemic has now made things worse,” said Abdisalan Noor, a senior official in WHO’s malaria department.

Alister Craig, dean of biological sciences at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, noted that progress in reducing malaria deaths had stalled even before COVID-19.