African malaria deaths set to dwarf covid-19 fatalities as pandemic hits control efforts, WHO warns

African malaria deaths set to dwarf covid-19 fatalities as pandemic hits control efforts, WHO warns Excess malaria deaths caused by pandemic driven shortfalls in prevention and treatment efforts will probably dwarf direct deaths from covid-19 in sub-Saharan Africa, the World Health Organization has warned. Progress against malaria—dramatic in the first decade of this century—had already stalled since 2016 as foreign donors drifted away. But 2020 is likely to be the first year in decades to see an increase in deaths, WHO warned in its 2020 World Malaria Report.1 About 1.5 billion malaria cases and 7.6 million deaths have been averted since 2000, WHO estimates. But annual case numbers in sub-Saharan Africa have been unchanged since 2016 at about 230 million, and this year the region will fall far short of milestones … The BMJ

....

It’s likely that excess malaria mortality is larger than direct covid-19 mortality,” said Pedro Alonso, director of WHO’s malaria programme. Malaria killed 409 000 people in 2019 and 411 000 in 2018, most of them babies and toddlers in sub-Saharan Africa. A 10% disruption in access to antimalarial treatment could lead to 19 000 additional deaths there this year, WHO warned. More plausible disruptions of 25% or 50% in the region could result in an additional 46 000 or 100 000 deaths, respectively. The total number of covid-19 deaths recorded so far in sub-Saharan Africa is just under 30 000, of which more than two thirds occurred in South Africa.

Peter Sands, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, said at a meeting presenting the new WHO report, “The global health world, the media, and politics are all transfixed by covid-19 and yet we pay little attention to a disease that is still killing over 400 000 people every year, mainly children. This is a disease we know how to get rid of—so it is a choice that we don’t.”

Aid agencies fear that sub-Saharan African children, the people least likely to be killed by covid-19, will be those most harmed by it in the long term. Many African governments have imposed stringent restrictions during the pandemic. Unlike Arabic speaking north Africa, most sub-Saharan countries have seen far fewer than 1000 direct deaths. But the indirect damage the pandemic has wrought is likely to persist for years. ...