Zimbabwe’s hard-won progress toward eliminating malaria is being reversed following cuts to foreign aid, with cases and deaths surging across the country, Save the Children warned on April 24, 2026, on the eve of World Malaria Day, according to a press release by Save the Children. As of mid-April, Zimbabwe had recorded over 65,000 malaria cases in 2026 — nearly double the number reported over the same period in 2025 — along with 174 deaths, also nearly double the 2025 figure. The organization says the rollback of a major malaria program is the key driver behind this sharp deterioration.
For more than a decade, Zimbabwe had been regarded as an international malaria success story. Between 2023 and 2024, the country reduced malaria cases by 76.6%, equivalent to 487,000 cases, making the greatest gains in malaria reduction globally in 2024 in both incidence and mortality. By 2023, more than one fifth of Zimbabwe’s population was living in malaria-free areas, according to WHO data. The country had been on track to reach a more than 70% reduction and up to zero incidence in 2025.
Last year’s aid cuts led to the premature ending of the second phase of the Zimbabwe Assistance Program in Malaria — the country’s largest malaria program — which had been on track toward eliminating the disease. Save the Children, one of four partners implementing the program, said the closure caused shortages of insecticide-treated mosquito nets, delays in vector control operations, and weakened disease surveillance. Heavy rainfall and fluctuating weather patterns further promoted the spread of the disease. By contrast, between January and April 2024 — before the aid cuts — Zimbabwe recorded only around 17,000 cases and 34 deaths.
Bhekimpilo Khanye, Save the Children’s Country Director for Zimbabwe and Malawi, said: “Communities, aid agencies, health workers and the government had been working together for years to beat malaria in Zimbabwe, and we were making real progress. Last year’s aid cuts have hugely set us back.” Khanye explained that once malaria parasite numbers start to dwindle in a community, it produces a knock-on effect — fewer places to grow and breed means increasingly smaller numbers until zero is reached. However, he noted, stopping the work has the opposite impact, with numbers rapidly increasing. “We have seen a complete reversal, with the gains that were made now reversed,” he added.
Save the Children is calling on global donors and leaders to refocus attention on malaria, describing it as one of the leading global causes of death in young children. The organization states that eliminating malaria is possible, but only if commitment is sustained through predictable, long-term investment. Save the Children has worked in Zimbabwe since 1983 and is currently scaling up its emergency response, focusing on food security, health, nutrition, education, and child protection. The agency maintains that together, malaria numbers can be brought back down and lives saved in Zimbabwe.
