The potential impact of health service disruptions on the burden of malaria: a modelling analysis for countries in sub-Saharan Africa

The potential impact of health service disruptions on the burden of malaria: a modelling analysis for countries in sub-Saharan Africa

A new modelling analysis by WHO and partners considers 9 scenarios for potential disruptions in access to core malaria control tools during the pandemic in 41 countries, and the resulting increases that may be seen in cases and deaths. Under the worst-case scenario, in which all insecticide-treated net  campaigns are suspended and there is a 75% reduction in access to effective antimalarial medicines, the estimated tally of malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africa in 2020 would reach 769 000, twice the number of deaths reported in the region in 2018. This would represent a return to malaria mortality levels last seen in the year 2000.

GMP has also been working with several modelling teams to analyse the potential impact on malaria burden of different service disruption scenarios. The outputs of these modelling exercises reinforce the message that country programmes and ministries of health must ensure the continuity of malaria prevention and treatment services during the response to COVID-19. The results of these analyses are presented in this document. It is important to note that this analysis does not consider the impact of disruptions to indoor residual spraying (IRS) and seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC).