How Many People Die From Malaria Every Day
Malaria kills around 1,650 people every day, most of them children under five in Africa. The full breakdown by country, age, trend and prevention.
Picture a small health post on the edge of a village in northern Nigeria, a little after midnight in the rainy season. A mother has walked for two hours carrying her three-year-old, who has been burning with fever since the afternoon. Earlier the child was shivering and crying. Now she is quiet, which is worse. Her breathing is fast and shallow, and she will not wake properly when her name is called.
The nurse knows what this is before the rapid test confirms it. Severe malaria. If there is injectable artesunate in the cupboard, the child has a good chance. If the stock ran out last week, or if the mother had waited until morning, the odds change completely. Severe falciparum malaria can kill a small child within 24 hours of the first symptoms.
That scene plays out thousands of times a night. Most of the time the child lives. Around 1,650 times a day, somewhere on earth, someone does not.
The headline number
Malaria kills roughly 600,000 people per year. The World Health Organization's most recent full estimate put the toll at about 597,000 deaths from 263 million cases. That works out to around 1,640 deaths every day, or a little over one death every minute.
You can watch total global deaths ticking upward in real time on our live death counter, and see a dedicated running malaria count on our malaria page.
| Time period | Malaria deaths (approx.) |
|---|---|
| Per second | 0.02 |
| Per minute | 1.1 |
| Per hour | 68 |
| Per day | 1,640 |
| Per week | 11,500 |
| Per month | 50,000 |
| Per year | 600,000 |
What makes these numbers so hard to sit with is not their size. Heart disease and stroke kill far more people. It is that malaria is both preventable and curable. We have known what causes it for more than a century. We have cheap tests, cheap drugs, cheap nets and now two working vaccines. And yet a child still dies of it nearly every minute.
Who malaria kills: overwhelmingly, small children
If there is one fact about malaria worth remembering, it is this: it is mostly a disease that kills children under five.
In the WHO African Region, roughly three in every four malaria deaths are children under the age of five. Babies are protected for a few months by antibodies from their mothers, but that protection fades. Older children and adults who survive repeated infections build partial immunity, which does not stop them getting sick but usually stops them dying. The window in between, roughly six months to five years old, is where malaria does most of its killing.
| Group | Why they are at highest risk |
|---|---|
| Children under 5 | No acquired immunity yet; severe anaemia and cerebral malaria develop fast |
| Pregnant women | Immunity drops in pregnancy; the placenta is a target for the parasite |
| Unborn babies | Placental malaria causes low birth weight and stillbirth |
| People with HIV | Weakened immune systems make infection more severe |
| Travellers from non-malarial countries | Zero immunity; often diagnosed late at home |
| Mobile and displaced populations | Interrupted access to nets, tests and treatment |
This is why malaria sits so close to the centre of global child mortality. Around 13,400 children under five die every day from all causes, and malaria is one of the five biggest contributors alongside preterm birth complications, pneumonia, birth asphyxia and diarrhoea. We break that wider picture down in how many children die every day and on our child mortality page.
Where malaria kills: one continent, a handful of countries
Malaria is technically present in around 83 countries. In practice, its death toll is concentrated to a degree that almost no other major cause of death matches.
About 95% of all malaria deaths happen in Africa. And within Africa, just four countries account for more than half of the global total.
| Country | Approx. share of global malaria deaths |
|---|---|
| Nigeria | ~31% |
| DR Congo | ~11% |
| Niger | ~6% |
| Tanzania | ~4% |
| Rest of Africa | ~43% |
| Rest of the world | ~5% |
Nigeria alone loses roughly 500 people a day to malaria, more than six times as many as every malaria-affected country outside Africa put together. Our country data lists malaria as the top single cause of death in both Nigeria and Niger. If you want to see how that shapes overall mortality, compare those countries with the rest of the continent on our Africa region page, or look at how they rank in the countries with the highest death rates.
Outside Africa, the remaining burden is spread across South and Southeast Asia (India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea), the Eastern Mediterranean (Sudan, Yemen, Somalia) and the Amazon basin. Those regions see millions of cases, but a much smaller share of deaths, partly because the dominant parasite outside Africa is often Plasmodium vivax, which makes people very ill but kills far less often than Plasmodium falciparum.
How malaria actually kills
Malaria is caused by a single-celled parasite, not a virus or bacterium, and it is passed between people by the bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito. Five species of Plasmodium infect humans, but one of them does almost all of the killing.
| Parasite species | Where it is common | How dangerous |
|---|---|---|
| P. falciparum | Sub-Saharan Africa, parts of Asia | Responsible for the vast majority of deaths |
| P. vivax | Asia, Latin America, Horn of Africa | Severe illness, relapses for months; rarely fatal |
| P. ovale | West Africa | Mild, relapsing |
| P. malariae | Scattered worldwide | Mild but can persist for decades |
| P. knowlesi | Southeast Asia (from macaque monkeys) | Can become severe quickly |
After the bite, the parasites travel to the liver, multiply silently for one to two weeks, then burst into the bloodstream and begin invading red blood cells. Every 48 hours or so, a fresh wave of infected cells ruptures, which is what produces the classic cycles of fever, chills and sweating.
With falciparum, infected red blood cells become sticky and cling to the walls of small blood vessels, especially in the brain. That is what causes cerebral malaria: seizures, coma and death. Others die from severe anaemia, as the parasite destroys red blood cells faster than a small child's body can replace them, or from acidosis and breathing failure. The speed is the cruel part. A child can go from playing in the morning to unconscious by night.
A disease older than history
Malaria has been killing people for as long as there have been people. Hippocrates described its cycles of fever. The name itself comes from medieval Italian, mal aria, meaning "bad air", because people believed it rose from swamps. They were half right: swamps breed mosquitoes.
It was not confined to the tropics, either. Malaria, known locally as "the ague", was endemic in the marshes of eastern England for centuries, and the Kent and Essex marshes and the Fens had some of the worst death rates in the country well into the 1800s.
You will often read that malaria has killed half of all humans who ever lived. That figure is almost certainly an exaggeration, and there is no solid evidence behind it. What is true is that malaria has left a permanent mark on our species. The sickle cell trait, which protects carriers against severe malaria, became common in Africa precisely because malaria was killing so many children who did not carry it. Few other diseases have shaped human genetics so visibly. It earns its place alongside the great plagues in the deadliest pandemics in history, even though it never arrived as a single dramatic wave.
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1630s | Cinchona bark (source of quinine) brought from Peru to Europe |
| 1880 | Alphonse Laveran sees malaria parasites in human blood |
| 1897 | Ronald Ross proves mosquitoes transmit malaria |
| 1955 | WHO launches the Global Malaria Eradication Programme |
| 1972 | Tu Youyou's team isolates artemisinin from sweet wormwood |
| 2000 | Malaria deaths estimated at well over 800,000 a year |
| 2015 | Tu Youyou awarded the Nobel Prize for artemisinin |
| 2021 | First malaria vaccine (RTS,S) recommended by WHO |
| 2023 | Second vaccine (R21/Matrix-M) recommended |
| 2024 | Routine childhood malaria vaccination begins in Africa |
The great progress, and the stall
Here is the genuinely hopeful part of the story. Between 2000 and 2015, malaria deaths fell dramatically. WHO estimates that since 2000, global efforts have averted more than 2 billion malaria cases and nearly 13 million deaths.
| Year | Estimated malaria deaths |
|---|---|
| 2000 | ~864,000 |
| 2010 | ~700,000 |
| 2015 | ~580,000 |
| 2019 | ~568,000 |
| 2020 | ~631,000 |
| 2023 | ~597,000 |
Most of that fall came from one humble object: the insecticide-treated bed net. A landmark study in Nature estimated that nets were responsible for around two thirds of the malaria cases averted in Africa between 2000 and 2015. Add in rapid diagnostic tests, artemisinin-based combination therapies, indoor spraying and seasonal preventive drugs for children, and you get one of the great public health achievements of the century.
But look closely at that table and you will notice something. After 2015, the line goes flat. The 2020 spike was caused by disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the toll has only crept back down since. For roughly a decade, the world has been running to stand still. The number of cases has actually risen as Africa's population has grown, even while the rate of infection per person has edged down.
Why progress has stalled
There is no single villain. Instead, several threats are converging at once.
| Threat | What is happening |
|---|---|
| Funding gap | Around $4 billion a year is spent fighting malaria, roughly half of the $8 billion-plus WHO says is needed |
| Aid cuts | Reductions in international aid during 2025 disrupted net, drug and testing programmes in several high-burden countries |
| Drug resistance | Partial resistance to artemisinin has now been confirmed in East Africa, including Rwanda, Uganda, Eritrea and Tanzania |
| Insecticide resistance | Mosquitoes in many areas now survive the pyrethroid insecticides used on standard nets |
| Invasive mosquito | Anopheles stephensi, which thrives in cities, has spread from Asia into the Horn of Africa and beyond |
| Test failure | Some parasites have lost the gene that common rapid tests detect, so infections are missed |
| Climate and conflict | Shifting rainfall, floods and displacement push malaria into new areas and break health services |
Drug resistance is the threat that worries scientists most. Artemisinin resistance emerged first in Southeast Asia's Mekong region, and that region managed to contain it while driving its own malaria cases sharply down. Africa, with far more transmission and far more children at risk, has a much harder task. If the partner drugs in combination therapies also start failing, the death toll could rise quickly.
What actually works, and what it costs
The tragedy of malaria is also its opportunity: the tools are cheap, proven and available now.
| Intervention | What it does | Rough cost |
|---|---|---|
| Insecticide-treated bed net | Protects sleepers for around three years | A few dollars per net |
| Dual-insecticide nets | Work against resistant mosquitoes | A little more than standard nets |
| Rapid diagnostic test | Confirms malaria in 15 minutes | Under a dollar |
| Artemisinin combination therapy | Cures uncomplicated malaria in three days | About a dollar per course for a child |
| Injectable artesunate | Treats severe malaria, saves lives in hospital | A few dollars per course |
| Seasonal malaria chemoprevention | Monthly preventive drugs for children in the rainy season | A few dollars per child per season |
| R21 or RTS,S vaccine | Four doses in early childhood, cuts cases substantially | A few dollars per dose |
Charity evaluators that try to measure cost-effectiveness consistently rank malaria programmes near the very top of anything you can fund. GiveWell's estimates put the cost of saving one life through bed net distribution or seasonal preventive drugs at roughly $5,000 to $6,000. Few causes on this site, from hunger to air pollution, have such a clear and affordable route to fewer deaths.
The vaccines are the newest piece of the puzzle. Neither RTS,S nor R21 is a perfect shield, but in areas where malaria peaks in the rainy season, giving the vaccine just before transmission season cut clinical cases by around three quarters in trials. Since Cameroon started routine vaccination in January 2024, roughly 20 African countries have added a malaria vaccine to their childhood schedules. Over the next decade, as coverage expands, the vaccines are expected to save tens of thousands of children every year.
The countries that won
It is worth remembering that malaria can be beaten completely. Dozens of countries have done it. Since 2000, WHO has certified a growing list of nations as malaria-free, and as of 2025, more than 45 countries and one territory hold that status.
| Country | Certified malaria-free |
|---|---|
| Sri Lanka | 2016 |
| China | 2021 |
| El Salvador | 2021 |
| Azerbaijan and Tajikistan | 2023 |
| Belize | 2023 |
| Cabo Verde | 2024 |
| Egypt | 2024 |
| Georgia | 2025 |
| Suriname | 2025 |
| Timor-Leste | 2025 |
China is perhaps the most striking story. In the 1940s, it reported around 30 million cases a year. Seventy years of drainage, nets, mass treatment and fast case tracing brought that to zero local infections by 2017. Egypt, where malaria had been recorded since the age of the pharaohs, reached the same milestone in 2024. These countries did not have magic tools. They had sustained funding, political commitment and health workers who tracked down every case.
Malaria and travellers
If you live in the UK, Europe or North America, malaria might feel distant. It is not entirely. The UK sees roughly 1,500 to 2,000 imported malaria cases a year, nearly all of them in people who caught it abroad, most often after visiting family in West Africa. Each year a handful of those people die, usually because the symptoms were mistaken for flu and treatment came too late.
The advice is simple and worth repeating:
- Take antimalarial tablets exactly as prescribed, including the days after you return
- Sleep under a net and use repellent with DEET in malarial areas
- Treat any fever within a year of travel, and especially within three months, as possible malaria until proven otherwise
- Tell the doctor where you travelled, every time
People who grew up in malarial countries often assume they are still immune. They are not. Partial immunity fades within a few years of living elsewhere, which is why visiting friends and relatives make up the largest group of UK cases.
How malaria compares with other killers
Malaria is one of the "big three" infectious diseases that global health has fought for decades, alongside tuberculosis and HIV. All three now kill fewer people than they did in 2000. None is anywhere near finished.
| Cause | Approx. deaths per day |
|---|---|
| Tuberculosis | ~3,400 |
| Road injuries | ~3,250 |
| HIV/AIDS | ~1,700 |
| Malaria | ~1,640 |
| Maternal deaths | ~710 |
| Measles | ~290 |
What sets malaria apart is its age profile. A road accident or tuberculosis death can strike at any age. A malaria death is most likely to be a toddler. In terms of years of life lost, that makes it one of the most destructive diseases on earth, and one of the main reasons life expectancy in countries like Nigeria and Niger still sits more than 20 years below that of Western Europe. It is also a textbook case of how income shapes life expectancy: malaria is overwhelmingly a disease of poverty, of homes without screens, families without nets and villages hours from a clinic.
While you were reading this
You have spent about 13 minutes with this article. In that time, roughly 15 people have died of malaria, and around 11 of them were children under five. Most of them lived in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo or one of their neighbours. Almost all of them died of a disease that a three-day course of tablets costing about a dollar could have cured, if it had reached them in time.
You can see how those deaths fit into the full picture of global mortality on our live death counter and on the deaths today page, or follow the dedicated running count on the malaria page. If you want to see how many malaria deaths have happened in your own lifetime, try the since you were born tool.
Malaria is not a mystery. We know what causes it, how it spreads, how to test for it, how to cure it and how to prevent it. Dozens of countries have already got rid of it for good. The 1,640 deaths that happen every day are not a failure of science. They are a measure of the distance between what we know how to do and what the world has so far chosen to pay for.
Data sources: World Health Organization World Malaria Report, WHO malaria fact sheets and certification announcements, Global Burden of Disease Study (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation), Bhatt et al. (Nature, 2015), UK Health Security Agency, GiveWell. Figures are rounded and represent the most recent available estimates; daily and per-minute figures are derived from annual totals. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or travel health advice. Always consult a doctor or travel clinic before visiting a malarial area.
You might also like
Tuberculosis Is Still Killing Over a Million People a Year: Here's Where and Why
TB kills roughly 3,700 people every day despite being curable since the 1940s. Here is who it kills, where, and why we still cannot stop it.
How Many People Die in the UK Every Day
Around 1,800 people die in the UK every day. Here is the full breakdown by cause, nation, age, season and postcode, using ONS, NRS and NISRA data.
How Many People Die in the US Every Day
Nearly 8,500 Americans die every day. Here is the CDC breakdown by cause, age, state and trend, from heart disease to overdoses and firearms.