Infectious Diseases: Global Outbreaks in 2026

Malaria remained a major global health emergency in 2024, with WHO reporting an estimated 282 million cases and 610,000 deaths, about 9 million more cases than in 2023. The burden stayed overwhelmingly concentrated in the WHO African Region, which accounted for about 94%-95% of global cases and deaths in 2024; WHO also reports that roughly 75% of malaria deaths in the region were among children under 5. Recent WHO reporting shows the crisis is being sustained by underfunding, drug and insecticide resistance, and service disruptions linked to conflict and access barriers. WHO warned in 2025 that foreign-aid cuts put millions of additional lives at risk and that more than half of malaria-endemic country offices assessed reported moderate or severe disruptions to malaria services. WHO also notes progress in elimination in some settings, with 47 countries and one territory certified malaria-free, but the overall global trajectory remains worsening rather than improving.

Mpox remains an active public health crisis in Africa, with **clade I, especially subclade Ib**, driving sustained transmission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighboring countries. CDC says that as of April 2026, the DRC still has the majority of clade Ib cases, and transmission has continued in Central and Eastern Africa, including Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique, Republic of Congo, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia. WHO’s late-2025 outbreak update also reported community transmission of clade Ib in several African countries, underscoring that the outbreak remains geographically broad and not fully contained. Recent evidence shows the epidemic continues to seed international spread. WHO reported in November 2025 that clade Ib had been detected without recent travel in multiple WHO regions, and by that point community transmission was considered established in several countries outside Africa. CDC notes that travel-associated clade I cases have largely been linked to subclade Ib and that these infections have generally been milder, but the DRC remains the epicenter of the ongoing African outbreak.