The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the number of global malaria cases in 2021 at around 247 million in 84 endemic countries. Compared to the previous year, the number of cases had increased by around two million. The clear majority of cases were counted on the African continent.
A total of around 96 percent of all malaria cases are found in just 29 countries. A quarter of the global cases were recorded in Nigeria. Although the infectious disease can be treated in most cases, malaria is one of the ten leading causes of death in Africa. The continent accounts for around 96 percent of the more than 618,000 global deaths.
Investments in malaria research
It is all the more important for the endemic countries to find effective means against malaria. Around a third of the funding for the fight against malaria comes from the 84 countries affected. However, most of the funding came from the United States of America (36 percent). Germany has been responsible for around three percent of global financing over the past ten years. This also shows how dependent the endemic countries are on financial aid from abroad. Without the sponsors from the unaffected regions, research and control would have long since reached their limits.
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In our weekly column we present numbers, curves and diagrams from technology and science.
The Statista graphic shows that there is still a lot of room for improvement in malaria research. While around 1.5 billion US dollars were invested in research into HIV and AIDS in 2021, only around 626 million US dollars were invested in malaria. And that despite the fact that the annual number of fatalities as a result of these diseases is similarly high. Research into HIV vaccines alone exceeds research funding for tuberculosis and malaria, for example. Drugs (US$255 million) account for the bulk of malaria research funding, followed by basic research (US$166 million) and vaccines (US$118 million).
Malaria has several subtypes that change and adapt frequently, so the same disease can occur more than once. Increased use of antimalarial drugs as a result of frequent illness leads to drug resistance in many people. The US authorities Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also found that two of the four malaria parasites have already developed immunity to common drugs, making the fight against the disease increasingly difficult.
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