In Rusesa, a village in Tanzania’s Kigoma region, a group of people – mostly women and children – gather to plan how to confront the neighborhood’s deadliest creature: the mosquito.
Mosquitoes have hounded them on their farms, in their homes, and even in their beds. Every one of Tanzania’s 64 million residents are at risk of contracting the disease. Pregnant women and children under 5 are particularly vulnerable.
Led by community health workers who go door-to-door to raise awareness among the public on how to kill or repel the mosquito, communities across Tanzania are fighting back.
Neema Vulugu is one of these community health workers. She convened the meeting in Rusesa, where she spoke about effective ways to prevent malaria and treatment for people when they get sick.
Neema supports 178 households to tackle malaria and other diseases. This work includes educating pregnant women on how to identify the signs of malaria and when to seek treatment, distributing mosquito nets and ensuring families know how to use them correctly, and helping people get tested and on treatment if they get the disease.
Neema knows that to win the fight against malaria, she must have the community behind her, so one of her main roles is rallying people to play their part in fighting the disease. The community has responded enthusiastically to her call.
As she walks along the village’s dirt paths, people call out greetings infused with malaria messages.
“‘Zero malaria starts with me,’ that’s how the people in the community greet me whenever they see me,” she says. “My visits show that people are doing a great job using mosquito nets,” she says.
Driven by a strong political will and increased global and domestic financing, Tanzania achieved a 43% reduction in the number of cases of malaria in the country, from 7.7 million in 2015 to 4.4 million in 2021. The number of deaths was reduced by 71%, from 6,311 deaths to 1,909 deaths in the same period.*
Globally, significant progress has been made fighting malaria over the last two decades, with death rates dropping by 47% since 2002.** But after years of steady declines, malaria cases and deaths are currently on the rise, mainly due to plateauing funds, new threats and the aftermath of COVID-19.
* According to data provided by the Ministry of Health of Tanzania. **Global Fund Results Report 2022.
But the Global Fund continues to work closely with the Tanzanian government and other partners including the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) and local communities to fight back the disease to reach the country’s national goal.
The national goal is to reduce the average malaria prevalence in children under 5 from 7% in 2017 to less than 3.5% in 2025. This is within the framework of the overall health sector national goal to achieve universal health coverage and reach the targets for health-related Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
Besides her work to fight malaria, Neema helps pregnant mothers deliver their babies safely, gives advice on healthy nutrition and educates her community on how to prevent sexually transmitted infections.
“On the third of every month, I take my book to the health center, where we all meet as community health workers from different hamlets in the village. We collate all our information,” she says.
That information is used for key decision-making in the fight against malaria and other potential health threats.
“I love my work,” Neema says. “Every day, I help save the lives of people in my community – especially women and children.”
In countries where the Global Fund invests, there are about 2 million community health workers like Neema on the front lines of the fight against deadly diseases, helping communities prepare for future health threats.
© 2026 The Global Fund
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