Malaria Facts
Bad News
Malaria is a disease that is spread through the bite of an infected female anopheles mosquito.
Malaria is a global health crisis. More than 50 percent of the world’s population is at risk, or 3.3 billion people.
Malaria is largely a maternal and child health crisis.
Malaria is a leading killer of children in Africa.
Somewhere in Africa, a mother loses her child to malaria every 30 seconds. That equals 3,000 children every day.
50 million pregnant women are at risk of malaria each year.
An estimated 50,000 maternal deaths occur each year due to malaria.
An estimated 200,000 neonatal deaths occur each year due to malaria, and countless other lifelong health complications due to malaria.
Malaria claims up to 3 million lives each year worldwide.
Malaria kills thousands more people than HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Measles and Leprosy combined.
Each year, there are approximately 500 million clinical cases of malaria.
Malaria is estimated to cost Africa over $12 billion annually in health care and lost productivity (harvests remain on the fields, people cannot go to work, and children cannot go to school), making malaria a leading cause of poverty.
Malaria poses the most significant health threat to the population in Uganda (Ministry of Health, Uganda).
Good News
Malaria is a highly preventable and 100% treatable disease.
A bed net is the most cost efficient and effective way in which to prevent malaria (World Health Organization, 2005).
Long lasting insecticide treated bed nets (LLINs) offer a primary wall of defense, providing a protective barrier against mosquitoes at night (mosquitoes bite primarily at night while people sleep).
Treatment is effective and inexpensive.
It costs approximately $3.00 to treat a child.
It costs approximately $1.00 to provide intermittent preventive therapy to a pregnant woman.
The eradication of malaria will help the advancement of six of the eight Millennium Development Goals in the areas of health, education and poverty by 2015.
Stop the bite, stop malaria.