African malaria efforts face varied control challenges

Malaria control efforts face persistent challenges across Africa, from stalled progress and limited resources to barriers in delivering effective interventions. Equatorial Guinea aims to extend to its mainland a Bioko Island program that sharply reduced infections and deaths through indoor spraying, bed nets, larval control, long-term funding, detailed data collection and community engagement, but the mainland’s scale and porous borders complicate expansion. Research in Ghana’s Dormaa Central Municipality found that malaria occurrence declined with greater distance from solid-waste dumpsites, suggesting poor waste management may contribute to urban transmission. A modeling study in southeastern Madagascar suggests that targeting interventions to selected communities based on geography and connections between villages could help health managers use scarce resources more strategically. In Nigeria, low completion of the four-dose malaria vaccine schedule is delaying expansion to additional states, while insecurity in Zamfara is disrupting access to malaria and other health services.