Two years without a single malaria death: one Ghanaian hospital shows what elimination looks like

Dr Elisabeth Tabitha Abbew runs the infectious diseases department at Cape Coast Teaching Hospital in Ghana — the kind of hospital that receives malaria patients at their most dangerous. For two years now, she says, malaria has not been a single patient's primary cause of death there. Her hospital is one window onto a national turnaround: according to Ghana Health Service figures, malaria deaths have fallen 98% between 2011 and 2025, with only 52 deaths estimated in the whole country in 2025. Dr Nana Yaw Peprah, Deputy Head of the National Malaria Eradication Programme, says elimination is 'within reach' — pursued district by district, with a goal of zero malaria in Accra by 2028. The doctors are clear about the recipe: not one silver bullet, but every tool at once — vaccines rolled out since 2019 (about 4.8 million children protected in 2023 alone), bed nets, spraying, preventive medicines and treatment, plus a new infant-formulated antimalarial added in 2026. In the three-country vaccine pilot, at least 993 deaths were averted across Ghana, Kenya and Malawi. Elimination is not a done deal, and funding worries are real — but the direction, measured in funerals that did not happen, is unmistakable.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: institutional program