Malaria remains a huge challenge with more than 263 million infections globally leading to over 597,000 deaths in 2023 (WHO, 2024). Africa still bears the brunt of the global malaria burden—with 94% of cases occurring on the continent.
According to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) 2024 World Malaria Report, approximately two thirds of global malaria cases and deaths are concentrated in 11 African countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda.
In Uganda, over 15 million infection cases and over 12,000 deaths were reported countrywide in 2023 (WHO, 2024). While the world must join hands with Africa to put an end to malaria, the disease remains a deeply local public health issue and a challenge for African scientists.
Eliminating malaria demands African leadership, innovation, and investment. Some progress globally has been made in combating malaria, but it is not enough, nor paced fast enough. While existing prevention methods like drugs, bed nets, and insecticides have saved millions of lives, they will likely be unable to take us to disease elimination.
“The reality is children under five and pregnant women are the most at risk of malaria in Uganda and this deadly disease hits the poorest hardest, fueling a cycle of poverty, underproductivity, underinvestment, impeding overall development; and this status should not be acceptable,” says Principal Investigator Target Malaria Uganda, Dr Jonathan Kayondo.
In addition, he explained that Uganda’s annual expenditure on malaria is estimated to exceed US$500 million, primarily due to the economic losses caused by the disease, including healthcare costs and lost productivity.
“Imagine what our country could achieve if the resources spent on malaria were freed up for education, infrastructure, and economic growth. But we will only get there if we match bold innovation with bold investment,” Dr Kayondo said.
Now, the global fight against malaria must intensify in light of global aid decreases. Target Malaria remains at the forefront of scientific innovation in its commitment to eliminating the deadly disease.
Target Malaria in collaboration with the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) are developing gene drive technology as a potential tool for novel vector control complementary to other control methods, and is expected to offer a cost-effective and sustainable approach to control malaria.
The UVRI-Target Malaria approach is to develop, in the laboratory, mosquitoes with select modified genetic trait/s impacting fertility or development, that when released will spread fairly quickly within a few generations, due to the gene drive, resulting in reduced ability of the wildtype mosquito population to reproduce, and hence a reduction in numbers leading to prevention of malaria transmission.
The technology is innovative in the sense that the modified mosquitoes spread the trait themselves leading to mosquito control by mosquitoes thus making the approach provide protection from malaria transmitting mosquitoes for everyone in the community, regardless of their education, wealth or ability to access healthcare services.
“For this World Malaria Day (April 25th, 2025), now is the time to double down on our efforts for finding new control solutions because eliminating malaria isn’t just possible—it’s inevitable, if we choose to fight for it together,” Dr Kayondo concluded.
About Target Malaria
Target Malaria is a not-for-profit research consortium that aims to develop and share new, cost-effective and sustainable genetic technologies to modify mosquitoes and reduce malaria transmission. Our vision is to contribute to a world free of malaria. We aim to achieve excellence in all areas of our work, creating a path for responsible research and development of genetic technologies, such as gene drive. www.targetmalaria.org.
The Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) is the collaborating partner in Uganda. Similar work in malaria endemic countries is also going on in Bukina Faso.
The entire consortium is made up of research teams in several locations across Africa, Europe, and North America, including Uganda, Burkina Faso, Ghana, the UK, US, and Italy. The lead institution is Imperial College London.
Target Malaria receives core funding by the Gates Foundation and Open Philanthropy. The lead grantee organization is Imperial College London with partners in Africa, Europe and North America.
About The Author
