Ending Malaria Makes Everyone Healthier, Safer and More Prosperous
A few months ago, alarm bells rang across global health networks as a mysterious disease emerged in a remote corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The outbreak seemed to defy easy explanation — it was circulating in the remote parts of the country and primarily struck children under the age of 5 with surprising severity. It hit its patients with a cocktail of symptoms, including fever, headache, cough and sometimes difficulty breathing. The disease was also spreading swiftly, infecting hundreds and claiming dozens of lives within a few weeks. Amidst the growing panic, global health officials hastily labeled it “Disease X” — a catch-all term for an unknown pathogen that could unleash similar consequences to those wrought by COVID-19.
When a coalition of health partners, led by the government of DRC, rushed to the location, collected samples and investigated the outbreak, they discovered that Disease X was not some new pathogen. It was, in fact, a strain of severe malaria presenting itself as a respiratory illness. Complicated by malnutrition, which had weakened people’s immunity, an age-old disease had become more lethal.
This story serves as a stark reminder of two urgent realities. First, malaria remains a deadly disease, claiming the life of a child nearly every minute. Ending it would save the lives of millions of children and pregnant women. Second, tackling malaria is not just about saving lives today — it’s also about strengthening global health security and making the world safer for everyone. The disease remains a potent threat to all of us, wherever we live. It’s a killer we should see not just through the usual humanitarian lens, but also through the lenses of health security and economic opportunity.
As we saw in DRC, even diseases we thought we understood can present new challenges. Malaria is a disease we know how to prevent and treat, and one that should not be allowed to continue unabated. To secure ourselves from future pandemics, we must urgently end the diseases killing people today, building a future where a Disease X emerging from complications of an existing infectious disease does not happen.
The health system infrastructure and capabilities put in place to defeat malaria, such as medical supply chains, laboratories, community health workers and disease surveillance are what is needed to identify and respond to new outbreaks.
Take disease surveillance — in a typical rural clinic in malaria-endemic areas, most people presenting with fever are suffering from malaria. There are more than 250 million cases every year, of which 94% are in Africa. Accurately diagnosing malaria is one way to rule out or identify other disease outbreaks, so the better we are at diagnosing malaria, the better our overall disease surveillance and health security will be.
More generally, in the most afflicted areas, malaria often overwhelms health systems, with a significant portion — and in some cases, the majority — of health facility activities devoted to this one disease. In such contexts, it is extremely difficult to tackle other pressing health needs, let alone identify and respond to new threats. At the height of the pandemic, COVID-19 squeezed out other health priorities, leaving a legacy of problems that still affect many health systems, even in the richest countries. In the highest burden countries, malaria has this impact all the time. Investing in the fight against malaria is a powerful way to free up the capacity of health systems, meet other urgent health care needs and tackle dangers arising from new pathogens.
Additionally, investing in malaria control not only saves lives — it also boosts productivity and creates economic opportunities. There is compelling evidence that reducing the malaria burden in malaria-endemic countries could unlock substantial economic growth. One recent study estimated that getting back on the path to ending malaria between 2023 and 2030 could boost the GDP of malaria-endemic countries by US$142.7 billion. Moreover, the benefits would extend further, increasing global trade by US$80.7 billion during the same period, including US$3.9 billion in additional exports for G7 countries.
Ending malaria is not just the right thing to do, it's also the smart thing to do. If saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of young children and pregnant women through investments in malaria isn't persuasive enough to global donors, they should recognize that ending malaria is crucial to ensuring their own safety and prosperity.
Now is the time to ramp up efforts to end malaria. Progress against malaria has stalled in recent years due to a combination of factors, including violent conflict, extreme weather events, stagnant funding and the emergence of drug and insecticide resistance. Any decline in political commitment or funding risks sharp reversals. But if we can scale new innovations, improve efficiencies, and — perhaps most critically — sustain the pace of investment, we can still defeat this disease once and for all.
This is not the time to take our foot off the accelerator. Doing so would risk losing the gains we have fought so hard to achieve. Instead, we must reaffirm our commitment to beat malaria. Investing in the fight against malaria is one of the most cost effective and powerful ways to save lives, improve the health of some of the poorest communities in the world, and deliver a safer and more prosperous future for us all.
This op-ed was originally published on Forbes.