Can you stop malaria crossing borders? One nation’s bid to wipe out the disease

Informal migration, plus climate change and rising numbers of cases globally, are complicating the tireless efforts of landlocked Eswatini to eradicate the killer disease The freezer is filled with blue-lidded tubes of cows’ blood, ready to be defrosted and used to feed the colony of mosquitoes. “Also, you can use your arm,” says Nombuso Princess Bhembe, who tends the mosquitoes at Eswatini’s national insectary, an unremarkable building in the town of Siphofaneni, part of the southern African country’s push to eliminate malaria. But the landlocked nation of 1.2 million people, formerly known as Swaziland, is facing headwinds from not only the climate crisis, aid cuts and insecticide resistance but also economic migration from countries with higher case numbers. In 2024, Eswatini recorded 362 confirmed malaria cases, while neighbouring Mozambique recorded 11.6m cases, one of the world’s highest figures. Next door, South Africa recorded 4,639. It is easy for the malaria parasite to travel in the blood of people using informal crossings along porous borders. And a changing climate is creating better breeding conditions for mosquitoes, while also extending the malaria seaso