Eliminating malaria by 2040 among agricultural households in Africa: potential impact on health, labor productivity, education and gender equality

Abstract

Background: Ambitious goals have been established to eradicate malaria by the year 2040. Suppressing malaria in rural agricultural communities in sub-Saharan Africa represents one of the greatest challenges to achieving malaria eradication given the poverty and high intensity of malaria transmission in these regions. The objective of this study is to examine how suppressing malaria among smallholder agricultural households in sub-Saharan Africa over the next two decades will affect progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.Methods: Using agricultural census data and malaria morbidity data, we developed estimates of the number of malaria cases among smallholder agricultural households for each country in sub-Saharan Africa. Using these estimates as well as additional data from the literature, we analyzed how achieving malaria eradication by 2040 would affect indicators related to four Sustainable Development Goals: health, poverty, education and gender equality.Results: Our analysis found that achieving malaria eradication would prevent approximately 1 billion malaria cases and thereby decrease the number of lost work-days among agricultural households due to malaria morbidity by approximately 3.8 billion days. Eradicating malaria by 2040 would also increase the number of school days attended by children by 4.5 billion days while also reducing the number of caregiving days by women for malaria cases by approximately 1.9 billion days.Conclusions: This article analyzed the impact of eradicating malaria among smallholder agricultural households in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of four of the Sustainable Development Goals. Greater recognition of the non-health benefits of achieving malaria eradication could catalyze the agricultural sector to intensify their contributions to eradicating malaria.