Leslie RobertsScience's COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.Back in March when COVID-19 hit, Pedro Alonso became alarmed about a different infectious disease. “I thought I would be witnessing the biggest malaria disaster in 20 years,” says Alonso, a malaria scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO).
African countries went on lockdown to curtail COVID-19; worried about mass gatherings, they suspended campaigns to distribute mosquito-fighting bed nets.
Fears abounded that with clinics overwhelmed by COVID-19, patients would be unable to get treatment for malaria, which kills an estimated 405,000 per year, mostly African children.