Malaria vaccine rollout across Burkina Faso has coincided with the country’s sharpest single-year decline in cases and deaths in recent memory. Health Minister Robert Kargougou announced that total malaria cases fell from 10,805,020 in 2024 to 7,329,278 in 2025 — a 32% drop — while deaths fell from 3,523 to 1,979, a 44% decline.
At a glance
- Case decline: Malaria cases in Burkina Faso fell from 10,805,020 in 2024 to 7,329,278 in 2025, a 32% drop, according to Health Minister Robert Kargougou.
- Death toll: Malaria deaths fell from 3,523 to 1,979 over the same period, a 44% decline; among children under five, mortality fell by more than 40%.
- Vaccine scale-up: The R21 malaria vaccine was expanded to all 70 of Burkina Faso’s health districts by August 2025, following the RTS,S vaccine’s introduction in 27 districts in February 2024.
More than one intervention
Vaccination alone doesn’t explain the drop. Dr. Pierre Kayende, Country Director of Malaria Consortium Burkina Faso, called the results “spectacular progress” driven by “the combined efforts of all stakeholders,” including bed net distribution, seasonal chemoprevention campaigns, and improved diagnosis and treatment in public and private health facilities. The R21 vaccine’s rapid expansion followed early lessons documented by researchers in The Lancet Global Health, who tracked the rollout’s first months across both Burkina Faso and neighboring Cameroon.
Among children under five specifically, cases declined 39% and mortality fell by more than 40%, according to Gavi. Malaria Consortium’s own analysis put under-five deaths even lower — dropping from over 2,200 in 2024 to around 1,300 in 2025, a decline of almost 60%.
Savings families can feel
The World Health Organization’s Africa office estimates the reductions have saved Burkina Faso households more than $26.6 million in direct healthcare costs. Mothers interviewed at the Cissin 17 Health and Social Promotion Centre in Ouagadougou described fewer malaria episodes among their children since prevention efforts expanded.
“It’s a real opportunity for our country to have access to these products,” said Assita Traoré, a mother who also reported fewer cases in her broader community.
A goal still years away
Burkina Faso has set a target of eliminating malaria entirely by 2030. “Based on these new data showing reductions in malaria cases and deaths, I can say that we are on the right track toward eliminating malaria by 2030,” Kayende said.
But Burkina Faso remains among the 10 countries with the highest malaria burden in the world, and 7.3 million cases in a single year is still an enormous ongoing toll. Whether the current pace of decline can be sustained, particularly as global health funding faces new pressures, remains an open question, part of a broader wave of disease elimination and public health wins unfolding across the continent.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Gavi
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Cameroon’s malaria vaccine cuts child cases 20% in year one
- Nearly 20 million measles deaths averted in Africa since 2000
- The Good News for Humankind archive on public health & disease
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