Aid reductions and climate change cause malaria in Zimbabwe | Story

Harare, Zimbabwe Precious Mvundura woke up with pain in her joints, a high fever and a pounding head on a cold morning in eastern Zimbabwe.

The 37-year-old initially thought it was just a cold. But when the headache continued for three days, he began to worry.

Her five-year-old son was also sick and was sweating profusely.

In early May, the two sought help from a health worker in the village of Chishakwe, a rural farming community outside Zimbabwe’s third largest city, Mutare. All were diagnosed with malaria.

“I felt relieved,” Mvundura told Al Jazeera.

“From the moment I took the medicine, I started to recover.”

Her son has also recovered and is back at school.

Their plight comes as malaria cases and deaths rise in Zimbabwe as a lack of US funding hampers major malaria programs.

Shortly after returning to office for a second term in 2025, US President Donald Trump cut foreign aid funding, including programs supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In Zimbabwe, the cuts have disrupted tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria education, prevention and treatment.

Among those affected are the Zimbabwe Entomological Support Program in Malaria (ZENTO) at the Africa University in Mutare, which provided scientific research to support the National Malaria Control Programme, and the Zimbabwe Assistance Program in Malaria II (ZAPIM II), which helped promote malaria, treatment and prevention in high-burden districts.

USAID provided $270m for health and agriculture programs in Zimbabwe in 2024.

Malaria cases rose to 65,399 between January and April 2026, up from 36,000 recorded in the same period in 2025 and 17,000 in 2024, according to the Zimbabwe Ministry of Health’s weekly malaria control report.

Deaths have also risen sharply, reaching 174 between January and April 2026, compared to 85 in the same period last year and 34 in 2024.

Mvundura and her son survived because they went to the hospital early. In many other cases, the disease has been fatal.

Lack of mosquito nets, testing equipment

Thomas Chuchu, health director at Save the Children Zimbabwe, said several anti-malaria projects that had previously been supported by ZAPIM II had been disrupted.

“In practice, the settlement has continued through the government and other partners, but with limited operational capacity and slow implementation,” Chuchu told Al Jazeera.

The ZAPIM II program was implemented by the Ministry of Health in Zimbabwe in 11 districts in Central and East Mashonaland and Matabeleland North.

Before he got sick, Mvundura said he did not use nets or mosquito repellent.

He said: “I only started using the mosquito net my friend shared with me when I got sick.

In December 2025, Caroline Mawombedzi was diagnosed with malaria while living in Burma Valley, a farming area located one hour away from Mutare.

He last contracted the disease in the late 2000s as a child.

In the middle of May, her five-year-old daughter was diagnosed with fever by a counselor in Chishakwe village after suffering from a severe headache and stomachache.

Although her daughter received treatment, Mawombedzi said she could not afford protective equipment such as gloves.

“I don’t have a job, I can’t afford to buy a mosquito net.”

Virginia Chakandinakira, a village counselor who serves Chishakwe, said there is a shortage of malaria diagnostic equipment and medicine.

“I had a lot of malaria testing equipment and medicine, but in 2025 they didn’t give me any. I sent everyone showing malaria to the nearby Chitakatira hospital,” he said. Chitakatira is a village located one hour away from Chishakwe.

“I only received test kits and medicines in February. However, supplies are limited. Officials told us that they are only distributing to the areas with the most problems.”

Research programs stopped

The head of the Malaria Institute at Africa University, Professor Sungano Mharakurwa, has said that the sudden withdrawal of aid from the United States has led to the outbreak of malaria by disrupting the process.

ZENTO was providing data from the monitoring of malaria-carrying mosquitoes, which guided the strategies used by the National Malaria Control Program to stop the transmission of malaria, he said.

The Trump administration’s funding cuts have also halted the US President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), which was established in 2005 by former President George W Bush to eradicate and eradicate malaria worldwide. Mharakurwa said the PMI had played a major role in providing funding for malaria drugs, and communities had been left exposed without them.

He said the Malaria Institute later received funding from the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Global Ministry, but it failed miserably with previous US aid.

Zimbabwe’s dependence on aid for essential medicines, diagnostic equipment and mosquito control equipment has left the country vulnerable.

The head of Zimbabwe’s Community Working Group on Health, Itai Rusike, said the government should increase family health spending in order to reduce dependence on outsiders.

“It is dangerous that the country depends so much on foreign partners, because donors can withdraw money at any time if their interests change,” he said.

Climate change fuel spreads

Experts say climate change is also increasing the spread of malaria and other vector-borne diseases across Africa.

The increase in temperature has led to the spread of malaria in high altitude areas, which were previously immune to epidemics.

Zimbabwe experienced El Niño between 2023 and 2024, a season characterized by unusually warm temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, which disrupts rainfall in Southern Africa.

There were heavy rains in 2025 and 2026, which made for excellent mosquito breeding.

Chuchu, from Save the Children Zimbabwe, said the increase in malaria cases is closely related to heavy rains in 2025-2026.

“The rain made the mosquito breeding good, especially in the areas that have already spread such as Mashonaland Central, Manicaland, Mashonaland East and Mashonaland West,” he said.

“The effects of the typhoon are likely to be exacerbated by weak prevention measures, including the reduction of mosquito transmission, the delay of pest control activities, the reduction of human surveillance, and the difficulties of timely testing and treatment following the end of ZAPIM,” he added.

Responding, Professor Mharakurwa, said that the rains falling on top of the rain needed strong planning and equipment to help fight against malaria.

Government efforts

Zimbabwe wants to eliminate malaria by the year 2030, in line with the African Union.

For years, the government, working with aid agencies and international organizations, has relied on house spraying, mosquito netting, mass testing and awareness campaigns to contain the epidemic, especially in rural areas.

Health workers continue to carry out home spraying in high-malaria areas, while village teachers use public meetings and radio stations to promote early blood tests and early treatment. Officials have also stepped up surveillance and proactive measures in high-risk districts.

But some of these efforts have weakened following the collapse of donor programs. Major malaria control projects previously supported by ZAPIM II included event tracking, direct distribution of long-term insecticide-treated nets and regional rapid response systems.

For many years, the government and aid agencies have distributed mosquito nets every year to vulnerable areas such as Chishakwe. But since the US recession, the deficit has increased.

Village doctors say malaria testing equipment and antimalarial drugs are also running low in some rural areas, causing malaria patients to travel long distances to hospitals for testing and treatment.

Health experts are warning that unless the funding crisis is resolved urgently, Zimbabwe is at risk of losing years of progress in reducing malaria cases and deaths.

For Mvundura and her son, surviving malaria is like escaping death.

“We cheated death,” he said. It was very bad.