QUESTION:

Can you tell me, how many deaths result from malaria till today?

ANSWER

A lot! I think it is impossible to get an exact number, or even a decent guess – data on malaria deaths even in modern times are estimates at the best of times, and we have no way of knowing how many people were exposed to and/or died of malaria in ancient times.

Current estimates as to the annual number of deaths from malaria vary depending on which source you look at, but most agree that somewhere around 1 million people die every year from being infected with malaria. Of course, that number would have been lower in the past when total population numbers were also lower.

However, I think it would be fair to say that probably hundreds of millions of people have, over the course of history, died from being infected with malaria. More to the point, malaria continues to be a huge public health burden on huge portions of the world’s population, and disproportionately on the world’s poorest people, which makes it a top priority for disease advocacy, research and control initiatives.