Climate change impact on childhood malaria in Africa

A new study published in Nature provides the most comprehensive assessment to date of climate change's impact on childhood malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. The study, led by researchers from the Climate Impact Lab, University of California, Berkeley, University of Cape Town, and Yale University, analyzes over 50,000 blood samples collected between 1900 and 2016. It finds that climate change has slightly increased malaria overall, but with significant regional variations: warming temperatures are reducing malaria in hot regions like West Africa (e.g., Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali) while increasing risk in cooler areas such as the Ethiopian highlands and southern Africa. Under intermediate emissions scenarios, by 2100, malaria risk could increase by 20% in regions like the Rift Valley and coastal southern Africa. The study emphasizes that public health interventions have been far more influential than climate change, reducing malaria prevalence by 16 percentage points between 2000 and 2015, and that malaria elimination within a generation is possible with sustained investment.