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       Global Health

       Climate Change Drives New Cases of Malaria, Complicating Efforts to Fight the Disease

       The number of malaria cases rose again in 2022, propelled by flooding and warmer weather in areas once free of the illness.

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       A doctor tended to a malaria patient affected by flooding in a hospital in Sehwan, Pakistan, last year. Credit...Akhtar Soomro/Reuters

       By Stephanie Nolen

       Stephanie Nolen has traveled the world reporting on the growing health threat of mosquitoes.

       Nov. 30, 2023

       There were an estimated 249 million cases of malaria around the globe last year, the World Health Organization said on Thursday, significantly more than before the Covid-19 pandemic and an increase of five million over 2021. Malaria remains a top killer of children.

       Those new cases were concentrated in just five countries: Pakistan, Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia and Papua-New Guinea. Climate change was a direct contributor in three of them, said Dr. Daniel Ngamije, who directs the W.H.O. malaria program.

       In July 2022, massive flooding left more than a third of Pakistan underwater and displaced 33 million people. An explosion of mosquitoes soon followed. The country reported 3.1 million confirmed cases of malaria that year, compared with 275,000 the year before, with a fivefold increase in the rate of transmission.

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       Stephanie Nolen covers global health. She has reported on public health, economic development and humanitarian crises from more than 80 countries around the world. More about Stephanie Nolen

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