Presidents Malaria Initiative (PMI) Funding Analysis

Since its inception in 2005, the US President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) has played a major role in the reductions in malaria morbidity and mortality observed across Africa. With the status of PMI funding and operations currently uncertain, the paper “Estimating the potential malaria morbidity and mortality avertable by the President’s Malaria Initiative in 2025: a geospatial modelling analysis” published in the Lancet in June 2025 aimed to quantify the impact that a fully functioning PMI would have on malaria cases and deaths in Africa during 2025. 

MAP estimated that business-as-usual PMI contributions to vector control, seasonal malaria chemoprevention, and routine malaria treatment in Africa would avert 13.6 million malaria cases and 104 000 deaths in 2025. These estimates represent 11.3% of the total burden of malaria morbidity and 37.5% of the total burden of malaria mortality in PMI’s focus geographies across 27 African countries. These estimates do not account for the additional impact of PMI-supported provision of diagnostics or severe case management commodities, nor preventive treatment for pregnant individuals, which would further lessen these burdens. 

These results were quoted by Malaria No More and United to Beat Malaria in their official responses to the US government’s termination of USAID/PMI malaria control grants. The estimates were quoted by the WHO Director General and the Acting Assistant Administrator for global health at USAID in a widely publicised memo detailing the impact of the cessation of USAID funding. The Acting Assistant Administrator subsequently quoted these findings in his Statement for the Record to the United States House Committee for Foreign Affairs. Bill Gates used the estimates as evidence in his Testimony to the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations in June 2025. The study is used by impactcounter.com.