Malaria cases in Zambia increase by 37% in 2023

Zambia faced a 37% year-on-year increase in malaria cases from 8.1 million in 2022 to 11.1 million in 2023, Anadolu Agency reported yesterday citing the country’s health minister.

According to Sylvia Masebo, the country also witnessed a 19% increase in malaria deaths from 1,343 in 2022 to 1,602 in 2023, translating to 30,400 citizens being infected daily and four people dying per day from the disease.

“It is even more disheartening that 18% of these infections were in children under the age of five years and 1% were pregnant women,” Masebo told reporters in the capital Lusaka.

The government has distributed more than 11.6 million insecticide treated mosquito nets across the country, protecting 23.2 million people, health minister said.

Masebo also noted that 742,057 eligible structures had been sprayed through an indoor residual spraying program, protecting over 3.4 million people with the vector control intervention.