Concern at spread of Asian mosquito in Africa

The spread of a mosquito in East Africa that thrives in urban areas and is immune to insecticide is fuelling a surge in malaria that could reverse decades of progress against the disease, experts say.

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Africa accounted for about 95% of the 249 million malaria cases and 608,000 deaths worldwide in 2022, according to the most recent data from the World Health Organisation (WHO), which said children under five accounted for 80% of deaths in the region.

But the emergence of an invasive species of mosquito on the continent could massively increase those numbers.

Anopheles stephensi is native to parts of South Asia and the Middle East but was spotted for the first time in the tiny Horn of Africa state of Djibouti in 2012.

Djibouti had all but eradicated malaria, only to see it make a slow but steady return over the following years, hitting more than 70,000 cases in 2020.