Malaria Death Toll to Exceed COVID-19’s in Sub-Saharan Africa: WHO

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a daily press briefing on the new coronavirus, at the WHO headquaters in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 2, 2020. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

Deaths from malaria due to disruptions during the coronavirus pandemic to services designed to tackle the mosquito-borne disease will far exceed those killed by COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa, the World Health Organization warned on Monday.

More than 409,000 people globally—most of them babies in the poorest parts of Africa—were killed by malaria last year, the WHO said in its latest global malaria report, and COVID-19 will almost certainly make that toll higher in 2020.