Malaria hospitalisation among children in Kilifi fall to near zero, research reveals.

Children's malaria hospitalisation in Kilifi has dropped to near-zero in the last three decades, a study published by a Malaria Journal last month has revealed.

The study covers the last 35 years of clinical surveillance of paediatric malaria admissions in Kilifi in the longest continuous record of severe malaria surveillance anywhere in Africa, according to the researchers.

It tracked 69,165 paediatric admissions to Kilifi County Hospital between January 1990 and December 2024, drawing on children aged 1 month to 14 years who lived in the rural parts of the county.

The study, led by Dr Alice Kamau of the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme and Professor Robert Snow of the University of Oxford, estimated malaria exposure using infection prevalence among children admitted for trauma, elective surgery, bites and neoplasms.