Malaria cases spike in Malawi, Pakistan after 'climate-driven' disasters

LONDON - Extreme weather events in Malawi and Pakistan have driven "very sharp" rises in malaria infections and deaths, a global health chief said ahead of World Malaria Day on April 25.

Cases in Pakistan last year, after devastating floods left a third of the country under water, rose four-fold to 1.6 million, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

In Malawi, Cyclone Freddy in March triggered six months' worth of rainfall in six days, causing cases there to spike too, Peter Sands, head of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, told AFP in an interview.

"What we've seen in places like Pakistan and Malawi is real evidence of the impact that climate change is having on malaria," he said.

"So you have these extreme weather events, whether flooding in Pakistan, or the cyclone in Malawi, leaving lots of stagnant water around the place.

"And we saw a very sharp uptick in infections and deaths from malaria in both places," he said ahead of World Malaria Day on April 25.

Sands said World Malaria Day was usually an opportunity to "celebrate the progress we have made".

But this year it was an occasion to "sound the alarm".

The dramatic increase in cases caused by the climate-change-driven weather disasters illustrated the need to "get ahead of this" now, he said.

"If malaria is going to be made worse by climate change, we need to act now to push it back and where we can eliminate it," he said.

In both countries, pools of water left behind as waters receded created ideal breeding grounds for malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

Sands said there had been some progress made in the fight against malaria but stressed that a child still dies of the disease every minute.