
David Ekai, malaria coordinator for Kenya's Turkana County, speaks with a group of village elders about a trial program to prevent cases of seasonal malaria in the county.
Published January 28, 2025, last updated on January 29, 2025 under Research News
A pilot program to reduce the burden of malaria in remote northwestern Kenya is showing positive results, reducing cases of seasonal malaria by 70 percent among children in its first year, according to preliminary reports.
During the trial, community health promoters went door-to-door in Kenya’s Turkana County to offer preventive doses of antimalarial drugs to children under 5. They made visits monthly between June and October 2024, when malaria transmission peaks during the region’s rainy season.
The World Health Organization endorses giving children intermittent doses of antimalarial medicines, even when they show no signs of the illness, in areas that are prone to seasonal malaria outbreaks, a practice known as seasonal malaria chemoprevention.
Led by Duke Global Health Institute professor Wendy Prudhomme O’Meara and Moi University associate professor Diana Menya, the project was implemented by a consortium of partners, including Catholic Relief Services, the Turkana County government, and research teams at Duke and Moi.
Community health promoters listen to a...

Several top government and health officials gathered in Turkana County on Jan. 16 to announce the promising preliminary results. Dr. Joseph Lenai, national director of Kenya’s primary health care programs, praised the effort as a successful strategy for preventing death and illness from malaria, according to a report in the Kenya News Agency. Lenai said the government is committed to expanding the program to other counties.
“We’re very pleased with how this intervention holds promise for saving children’s lives,” O’Meara said in an interview on Kenya’s national news.
An arid region bordering Uganda, South Sudan and Ethiopia, Turkana County was long considered at low risk for malaria transmission due to its hot, dry climate. In 2023, O’Meara’s team found that approximately 30 percent of the people they tested in the county had malaria parasites in their blood, indicating that the disease was already endemic in the region. They also identified the presence of a mosquito species that is better adapted to dry conditions, increasing the potential for malaria transmission in the county.
Kenya’s National Malaria Control Programme has since ramped up efforts to prevent transmission in the county, including distribution of bed nets and elimination of mosquito breeding grounds. The pilot preventive medicine program will continue in the county for the next two years.
A Kenyan national news report on the...