Since the turn of the millennium, a coordinated global campaign against one of humanity’s oldest killers has produced one of public health’s most consequential achievements: malaria prevention programs have saved an estimated 14 million lives and averted 2.3 billion cases of the disease since 2000 C.E. The figures come from the WHO World Malaria Report, the most comprehensive annual tracking of the global malaria fight — and they represent what sustained, evidence-based investment can accomplish over a generation.
At a glance
- Malaria prevention: In 2024 C.E. alone, more than 170 million cases and 1 million deaths were averted — meaning the pace of lives saved is accelerating even as total case counts nudged slightly upward.
- Malaria-free countries: The number of countries reporting fewer than 1,000 cases annually has grown from 13 in 2000 C.E. to 37 in 2024 C.E., a nearly threefold increase driven by coordinated elimination programs.
- Malaria vaccines: As of 2025 C.E., 24 countries had introduced one or both WHO-approved malaria vaccines into routine childhood immunization schedules, a rollout that took less than four years to reach that scale.
Four tools that changed the math
No single intervention explains the decline. WHO credits four core tools — each targeting a different point in the transmission chain — for the generational shift in malaria mortality.
The most familiar tool, the insecticide-treated bed net, has quietly undergone a significant upgrade. As recently as 2019 C.E., next-generation dual-insecticide nets designed to combat growing insecticide resistance made up just 10% of nets shipped globally. By 2024 C.E., that figure had risen to 84%, driven by partnerships including the New Nets Project led by Unitaid and the Global Fund.
Indoor residual spraying — coating interior walls with insecticide — forms the second pillar. Seasonal malaria chemoprevention, the third, involves giving antimalarial medicines preventively to young children during peak transmission months. In 2024 C.E., that intervention reached 54 million children across 19 African countries. Nigeria, which carries the world’s highest malaria burden, accounted for more than half of those children reached.
The fourth tool is the newest and arguably the most historic. WHO approved the world’s first malaria vaccine, RTS,S/AS01, in 2021 C.E., followed by a second — R21/Matrix-M — in 2023 C.E. A partnership between manufacturers, WHO, UNICEF, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, drove down per-dose costs and made rollout financially viable across low-income countries. Seventeen African countries were administering malaria vaccines through routine immunization programs by 2024 C.E. Seven more joined them by 2025 C.E.
Elimination gains and what they demonstrate
Forty-seven countries and one territory are now officially certified malaria-free by WHO, including three new certifications in 2025 C.E.: Georgia, Suriname, and Timor-Leste.
Suriname’s certification is particularly significant. It is the first country in the Amazonian region to eliminate malaria entirely — demonstrating that elimination is achievable even in environments where dense forest cover and limited health infrastructure have historically made control difficult. That matters because it expands the map of what is possible.
The number of countries with very low case counts tells a similar story. In 2000 C.E., only 13 countries reported fewer than 1,000 cases annually. By 2024 C.E., 37 did. Progress at that scale doesn’t happen by accident — it reflects decades of sustained investment in community health workers, diagnostic capacity, supply chains, and political will.
The harder picture that surrounds the progress
The 14 million lives saved is real. So is what the numbers around it reveal. In 2024 C.E., there were still 282 million malaria cases and 610,000 deaths globally — both figures higher than in 2023 C.E. The WHO African Region accounted for 95% of those cases and deaths. Children under five made up roughly 75% of all malaria deaths in Africa, with over half of those deaths concentrated in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Niger.
Two emerging threats could reverse decades of work. Partial resistance to artemisinin — the backbone of modern malaria treatment — has been confirmed or suspected in at least eight African countries. Insecticide resistance among Anopheles mosquitoes is also weakening the bed nets and spraying programs that anchored two decades of progress. The CDC tracks artemisinin resistance as one of the most serious threats to global malaria control.
Global malaria funding in 2024 C.E. reached $3.9 billion — only 42% of the $9.3 billion annual target set by WHO’s Global Technical Strategy. Cuts to international health assistance in 2025 C.E. created direct uncertainty around bed net distribution and chemoprevention programs in the countries that need them most. The tools to eliminate malaria now exist. Whether the world will continue to fund them at scale is the open question.
Read more
For more on this story, see: World Health Organization — Malaria fact sheet
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Alzheimer’s risk cut in half by drug in landmark prevention trial
- Indigenous land rights advance toward 160 million hectares ahead of COP30
- The Good News for Humankind archive on global health
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