How often are people infected with malaria?

Malaria is an infectious disease that kills over 600,000 people a year. Most of them, children.

Its high death toll is at least partly explained by the fact that there are so many infections every year: an estimated 260 to 310 million.

I was curious to know how often people living in the worst-affected areas are infected with malaria. In the chart, you can see estimates of new cases per 100 people across high-burden countries. In recent decades, infection rates have declined but remain very high. There are around 30 new cases per 100 people each year.

It would be tempting to simplify this number and say that 30% of people living in Nigeria are infected each year. But that’s probably far from reality.

This is because the same people are often reinfected. When I looked at the scientific literature, I was surprised by how often. A study focused on children in Uganda found that those without preventative measures were infected around five times per year. Another found that in Burkina Faso, it was up to six times.

So, the reality behind the “30 cases per 100 people” average is probably very skewed. Many — particularly children who have not built up immunity — are infected multiple times per year, while most of the population is not infected at all.

Where this page came from

This page was imported from Our World in Data. “How often are people infected with malaria?” by Hannah Ritchie, published by Our World in Data under CC BY 4.0. Changed here: set as a page, its interactive charts shown as pictures. Data from third parties keeps its own licence.

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