Malaria Death Toll Possibly Twice As High As Official Count

The annual death rate of malaria is almost double the estimate put forth by the World Health Organization (WHO), with a large number of deaths in adults who, according to convention, rarely die of the disease, a new study finds. 

The controversial study, headed by Christopher J. L. Murray, MD, of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, calculated that 1.24 million people died of malaria in 2010, in contrast to the WHO’s estimate of 655,000.  It also established that 42% of those who died were age 5 or older, compared to the WHO’s report of 14%.

“In the global health landscape, being twice as big as people thought is pretty important,” Murray said, predicting the findings would be controversial.

The findings did display a large decrease in the number of malaria cases from 2004 to 2010, from 1.81 million to 1.24 million, suggesting the effects of better prevention and treatment.

“There has been a rapid decrease in malaria mortality in Africa because of the scaling up of control activities supported by international donors. Donor support, however, needs to be increased if malaria elimination and eradication and broader health and development goals are to be met,” researchers concluded.

-Michael Potts