Malaria Fight Faces Uncertainty Amidst Dramatic Climate Shifts

The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that the climate crisis poses a significant threat to the fight against malaria, as evidence suggests extreme weather events and rising temperatures have led to spikes in cases. Mosquitoes, the disease’s carriers, thrive in warm, damp, and humid conditions, which are increasingly prevalent due to global heating. The WHO’s director general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, emphasized the need for sustainable and resilient malaria responses, coupled with urgent actions to slow the pace of global warming and reduce its effects.

While data on the long-term impact of the climate crisis is limited, the WHO’s world malaria report highlights rising temperatures contributing to malaria transmission in African highland areas previously free of the disease. In Pakistan, severe flooding last year led to a five-fold increase in cases, with standing water becoming an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes.

Peter Sands, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, stresses that climate change is altering the game on malaria, with unpredictable consequences. Sands notes that displacement, destruction of health services, increased food insecurity, and malnutrition associated with the climate crisis threaten progress toward ending the disease.

Dr. Photini Sinnis, deputy director of the malaria institute at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, acknowledges that climate change will have an impact but warns it is challenging to predict. The global number of malaria cases in 2022 remains higher than pre-pandemic levels, with 249 million cases reported compared to 233 million in 2019.

The report also highlights other threats to eradicating malaria, including growing resistance to insecticides and the spread of invasive mosquito species, such as Anopheles stephensi, which has spread beyond its native habitats to Africa. This species thrives in urban settings, endures high temperatures, and is resistant to many insecticides.

Despite these challenges, signposts of hope exist. Initiatives to tackle resistance, such as improved bed nets and new insecticides, are underway. The WHO has also recommended widespread use of the R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine, and doses of another vaccine, RTS,S, have arrived in Cameroon, one of 12 African countries to receive the vaccine over the next two years.

Sands emphasizes that a powerful set of tools, including vaccines, are available to combat malaria. However, he notes that the world is not investing enough to deal with the disease, let alone the climate-fueled rise in cases.