A survey by the Corporate Alliance on Malaria in Africa (CAMA) has revealed that 62 per cent of respondents across 10 West African countries receive no malaria prevention support from their employers.

The report, made available on Tuesday to commemorate World Mosquito Day 2026, said only 38 per cent of the 300 respondents reported receiving some form of malaria prevention support at their workplaces.

The survey is titled ‘From Awareness to Action: Assessing Malaria Prevention Practices Across Workplaces and Communities in Africa’. It was conducted among stakeholders in Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Cameroon, Benin and Togo.

According to the report, the findings highlight a significant gap between awareness of malaria as a serious public health threat and the actions employers are taking to protect workers.

It said 39.3 per cent of respondents rated their organisations’ commitment to employee malaria protection as “fair”, while 37 per cent rated it “poor”.

This means that 76.3 per cent of respondents considered their employers’ commitment to malaria prevention to be either fair or poor.

The report said the gap could affect absenteeism, productivity, healthcare costs and workforce continuity. It urged employers to integrate malaria prevention into workplace health and enterprise risk-management strategies, rather than treating it solely as a corporate social responsibility initiative.

The report also identified an opportunity for greater private-sector involvement in malaria prevention.

“Although no respondent identified the private sector as the primary actor leading malaria prevention, 67.7 per cent wanted employers to play either a supportive or a leading role. 35.7 per cent favoured a supportive role for employers, while 32 per cent wanted them to take a leading role,” it said.

On technology, the survey found overwhelming support for increased use of technology and data-driven approaches to malaria prevention. It said that 95.3 per cent of respondents supported greater use of technology.

However, it said only 49.3 per cent said they were previously aware of technologies such as artificial intelligence, digital surveillance, and drones in malaria control.

Artificial intelligence-powered surveillance was identified by 41 per cent of respondents as the innovation with the greatest potential to improve malaria control, followed by drone-based vector control at 35.7 per cent.

The report recommended increased awareness, demonstrations and dissemination of evidence on the use of emerging technologies in malaria control. It also called for an integrated approach combining improved healthcare access, community education, and technology adoption to control malaria over the next five years.

The survey further found that 36.3 per cent of respondents identified improved healthcare access as the top priority, while 32 per cent selected community education and 31.7 per cent technology adoption.

The report said that Nigeria accounted for the largest proportion of respondents, with 133 participants, representing 44.3 per cent of the sample, followed by Ghana with 50 respondents, representing 16.7 per cent.

It said some survey findings were based on a data-enhancement protocol and should be treated as strategic working assumptions pending validation through a fully authentic West African dataset.

The report said the workplace malaria support finding was the highest-confidence and most immediately actionable finding from the survey.

It urged employers, governments, communities and other stakeholders to move from awareness to concrete action to reduce malaria transmission and its impact on workers and communities.

(NAN)