Malaria Consortium

The problem

Significant progress has been made in the fight against malaria over the past two decades. According to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 2.3 billion cases and nearly 14 million deaths were prevented between 2000 and 2024.^[1]

Nevertheless, the disease remains a serious challenge. Every year, approximately 282 million people worldwide still contract malaria, primarily on the African continent.^[2] The disease is fatal for more than 600,000 of them.^[3] Nearly 61% of the fatalities are children under the age of five—that’s more than 1,000 children per day. One in eleven children who die worldwide die from malaria; in sub-Saharan Africa, the figure is as high as one in seven.^[4]

Even when the disease is not fatal, people suffer tremendously. In addition to flu-like symptoms, malaria can cause permanent visual impairment, hearing loss or epilepsy. People’s lives are worsened not only by the cost of medical care and medication, but also by the inability to attend school or work during an acute attack.

The solution

In many countries, the risk of contracting malaria varies seasonally. The rainy season, when there are significantly more mosquitoes, is considered the peak season for malaria infections. The Malaria Consortium focuses its efforts on this period through what is known as seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC). This involves administering the antimalarial drugs sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine and amodiaquine to prevent infection. The WHO recommends this measure as effective, safe, well-tolerated, available, and cost-effective.^[5]

The Malaria Consortium supports the training of staff who administer the necessary medications to children in their homes. The children’s families are visited four times during the malaria season—once every month. During these visits, staff members are instructed to administer the first dose of medication themselves and to give two additional doses to the parents. The parents are then responsible for ensuring that the children take the medication over the following days.

According to GiveWell, depending on the region, it costs the Malaria Consortium between 5 and 6 USD to protect a child for the entire four-month prevention period recommended by the WHO—and between 2,000 and 7,000 USD to prevent a death from malaria.^[6]

The impact

Several randomized controlled trials show that malaria chemoprophylaxis effectively reduces the incidence of malaria. According to a renowned “Cochrane review,” which conducted an aggregated analysis of various studies, chemoprophylaxis programs prevented approximately 75% of all clinical malaria cases. In cases where malaria does occur, chemoprophylaxis results in a less severe course of the disease—for example, the risk of anemia, a common complication of malaria, appears to be lower.^[7][8]

The economic benefits of a decline in malaria infections are also immense: Every euro spent on antimalarial efforts in African countries increases that country’s gross domestic product by $6.75—an extraordinarily high figure.^[9]

The organization

The Malaria Consortium was founded in 2003 and works to curb the spread of malaria and other diseases in Africa and Asia. The Malaria Consortium is currently active in twelve countries in Africa and Asia. The organization’s SMC program has been in place since 2013 and is primarily implemented in the Sahel region of Africa.

In 2024 alone, the Malaria Consortium was able to provide 25 million children with SMC medications. The organization conducts its own research and works closely with governments to provide operational and technical support to their respective health care systems.

GiveWell has listed the Malaria Consortium as a “top aid organization” since 2017. The effectiveness of SMC programs has been demonstrated in numerous independent studies. The organization itself is characterized by a high degree of transparency and cost-effectiveness. It also has room for growth. GiveWell has been providing regular grants in the millions to the Malaria Consortium since 2020.