World Health Organization

Citation: Global Health Observatory (GHO) Data: https://www.who.int/gho/en/: World Health Organization; 2019. License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO   The GHO data provides access to indicators on priority health topics including mortality and burden of diseases, the Millennium Development Goals (child nutrition, child health, maternal and reproductive health, immunization, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, neglected diseases, water and sanitation), non communicable diseases and risk factors, epidemic-prone diseases, health systems, environmental health, violence and injuries, equity among others.

Globally, there were an estimated 247 million malaria cases in 2021 in 84 malaria endemic countries (including the territory of French Guiana), an increase from 245 million in 2020, with most of this increase coming from countries in the WHO African Region. In 2015, the baseline year of the Global technical strategy for malaria 2016–2030 (GTS), there were an estimated 230 million malaria cases.The proportion of cases due to Plasmodium vivax reduced from about 8% (20.5 million) in 2000 to 2% (4.9 million) in 2021.Malaria case incidence (i.e. cases per 1000 population at risk) reduced from 82 in 2000 to 57 in 2019, before increasing to 59 in 2020. There was no change in case incidence between 2020 and 2021. The increase in 2020 was associated with disruption to services during the COVID-19 pandemic.Twenty-nine countries accounted for 96% of malaria cases globally, and four countries – Nigeria (27%), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (12%), Uganda (5%) and Mozambique (4%) – accounted for almost half of all cases globally.The WHO African Region, with an estimated 234 million cases in 2021, accounted for about 95% of global cases.