Remember when global warming was going to increase Malaria? Never mind…

Remember these claims?

From Our World in Data, over the past 15 years, malaria deaths have almost halved. (h/t to Bjorn Lomborg)

In the visualisations below we provide estimates of the total number of deaths from the World Health Organization (WHO) from 2000 to 2015, and the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Global Burden of Disease (GBD) from 1990 to 2016. These estimates are notably different across various countries which affects the total number of reported deaths. IHME figures, as shown below, tend to be higher; they report deaths greater than 720,000 in 2015 versus only 438,000 from the WHO. Further information on the confidence intervals of WHO estimates, and a country-level comparison between these two sources is covered in our section on Data Quality & Definitions.

Malaria death estimates from WHO

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the WHO has published global estimates of the number of people that die from malaria. In these 15 years the global death toll has been cut in half: from 839,000 deaths in 2000 to 438,000 in 2015.

Africa is the world region that is most affected by malaria: In 2015, the African continent held 9 out of 10 malaria victims (click on ‘Expand’ to see this). But Africa is also the world region that has achieved most progress: from 2000 to 2015, African deaths from malaria were reduced from 764,000 to 395,000.

Malaria death estimates from IHME

The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) provide estimates of malaria deaths from the year 1990 onwards. Over this period we see a clear rise-peak-fall trend, increasing from around 746,000 deaths in 1990; peaking at upwards of 990,000 in 2003; and then declining (although at varying rates) to around 720,000 in 2016.

These estimates are notably higher than those of the WHO (see Data Quality & Definitions for further details). Although divergent on the total number of malaria deaths, both the IHME and WHO estimate that 90 percent (9 in every 10 deaths) are from the African region.