Climate change has suppressed malaria spread in African hotbeds of today, but is increasing the likelihood of disease in cooler regions across the continent
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Climate change is impacting the spread of malaria around Africa, a new study published in Nature has found. The study is the most comprehensive assessment to date, looking at how climate change’s historical and future impacts affect malaria in children in sub-Saharan Africa, where most cases and deaths occur.
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‘Climate change isn’t just making malaria worse or better—it’s moving it,’ said co-author and assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Tamma Carleton.
Researchers found climate change has slightly suppressed the spread of the disease in the warm, malaria hotbeds of today – for example, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Mali. In extremely hot Sahelian countries, such as Niger, Gambia and Somalia, the disease may actually be entirely eliminated due to extremely high temperatures.
However, for cooler regions, the picture is much different. In areas like southern Africa and high-elevation East Africa, climate change is making the temperature incrementally more suitable for mosquitoes to spread malaria. By 2100, the risk of malaria could increase by 20 per cent in regions including the Rift Valley and coastal southern Africa.
There are ways to prevent such a scenario from occurring: if the world can meet the 2°C warming threshold, this would avert five excess cases per 1,000 children in southern Africa and more in East African highlands.
In addition, authors underscore the importance of both climate mitigation and adaptation actions, including malaria elimination strategies, to tackle the disease.
‘Malaria was one of the first health outcomes linked to climate change, but it’s taken a quarter century to be sure which direction things are headed,’ said co-author Colin Carlson, assistant professor of epidemiology at Yale University.
‘The big story here is the opportunity for action: so far, elimination efforts have counteracted climate change impacts by nearly 200-fold. Malaria elimination within a generation is not only possible, but one of the best ways to protect frontline populations from climate change impacts.’
The spread of malaria
In 2024 alone, an estimated 610,000 people died of malaria across 80 countries – mostly young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
The disease is preventable and curable by either avoiding mosquito bites through using equipment such as nets and vaporisers, as well as taking medicines – but many lack access to such basic medical care.
Nearly half the world’s population live in areas at risk of malaria transmission, across 85 countries and territories.
However, in recent years, much progress has been made in the fight against the disease: malaria mortality dropped by 36 per cent from 2010 to 2020, leading to hopes and plans for eventual eradication.
