World Malaria Day: Malaria is Europe’s problem

On World Malaria Day, a reminder that the fight against malaria is inseparable from global health security, pandemic preparedness, climate resilience, and European interests.

Key figures at a glance:

  • 282 million malaria cases in 2024
  • 610,000 malaria deaths in 2025, 76% being children under 5
  • The Global Fund invested USD 21 billion to the fight against malaria until the end of 2025
  • The Global Fund plans to commit to USD 3.5 billion across 60 countries for the next three years to avert 300 million malaria cases and save over 4 million lives

Why Europe must focus on the fight against malaria

  • Global health security is Europe’s security. Malaria weakens the very health systems that serve as the first line of defence against the next pandemic. Supporting malaria control is supporting the world’s capacity to detect and contain emerging threats before they reach European borders.
  • One Health is a European priority, and malaria is One Health. From vector ecology to antimicrobial resistance, the malaria response embodies the integrated, cross-sectoral approach that Europe champions internationally. Europe’s credibility on One Health requires it to be present in malaria.
  • The returns are proven and massive. The Global Fund’s next commitment of $3.5 billion is projected to avert 300 million malaria cases and save over 4 million lives. Few investments in global health offer this scale of impact. Europe should not step back from returns like these.
  • Hastened transition to domestic funding is not an option. Innovations in malaria diagnostics, vector control and vaccines exist, but their rollout is being strangled by a severe funding gap. Malaria endemic countries have among the world’s most restricted fiscal spaces and acute debt distress. With the Global Fund’s next three-year cycle under pressure, European contributions are not optional: they are the difference between progress and reversal.
  • Health systems and PPPRIn high-burden countries, malaria is the single greatest cause of clinic visits and hospitalizations, leaving health systems with little capacity to respond to other diseases and emerging outbreaks. In Cameroon alone, malaria accounts for 30% of all outpatient visits and half of all hospitalizations of children. When a new pathogen appears, these are the health systems that must detect and contain it first.

    The recent surges in Zika, dengue, and chikungunya are a reminder that vector-borne diseases remain a major pandemic risk. The fight against malaria is simultaneously a fight against this broader threat: entomological surveillance, for example, helps monitor the vectors and better understand the dynamics of both malaria and dengue, as well as other mosquito-borne diseases. Investing in malaria control is investing in multi-pathogen vector control.

    Example:

    In Madagascar, malaria funding helped build a Fever Sentinel Surveillance Network covering 118 community health workers, 54 health facilities, and 18 hospitals, reporting daily on malaria tests and flagging suspected outbreaks of dengue, influenza, SARS-CoV-2, plague, and other diseases. Malaria infrastructure is outbreak infrastructure.

    Climate change is bringing malaria closer to Europe

    Malaria is among the most climate-sensitive diseases in existence. With 282 million cases and 610,000 deaths recorded in 2024 (nine million more cases than the year before) the trend is heading in the wrong direction. Climate-driven shifts in temperature, rainfall patterns, and the geographic spread of new vector species are expanding malaria transmission into areas where the disease had never been, or had long been eliminated.

    In Eastern and Southern Africa alone, between 50 and 62 million additional people are expected to become newly at risk of endemic malaria by 2050. The Mediterranean region is not exempt: the combination of rising imported cases and climate-induced environmental shifts puts parts of Europe on a trajectory of renewed exposure.

    Between now and 2050, extreme weather is expected to contribute to nearly 500,000 additional malaria deaths. The climate-change driven 2022 floods in Pakistan triggered a fivefold increase in malaria cases in a single year, causing more deaths than the flooding itself.

    Malaria at the hearts of One Health and antimicrobial resistance

    Malaria sits at the crossroads of the One Health agenda: entomology, water and sanitation, habitat, human and animal health are all part of both the problem and the solution. Crucially, malaria is also a pivotal stake in the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The spread of resistance to insecticides and pesticides used in malaria control is a growing threat.

    In Ghana, the Global Fund supported a programme in which national malaria control partners working on indoor residual spraying (IRS) collaborated directly with agricultural companies to jointly map insecticide use and pressure in the surrounding environment. This kind of integrated, cross-sectoral approach is precisely what the One Health framework calls for, and what Europe has made a diplomatic priority.

    “The Global Fund provides almost two thirds of all international funding for malaria programmes. Our next commitment: more than $3.5 billion across 60 countries over the next three years — averting over 300 million cases and saving more than 4 million lives”, declared Peter Sands, Executive Director of the Global Fund, during the One Health Summit in Lyon, on April 7th 2026.