Clad in a rainbow of colors and frills, the moms spill from the waiting rooms into the corridor, holding babies who are bouncing, sleeping and crying.

It’s a busy day at a clinic outside Bujumbura, Burundi. It’s the day that women can come for antenatal checkups, bring their babies and small children for vaccinations—and receive insecticide-treated mosquito nets.

When asked whether bed nets really do prevent malaria, the mothers shout a chorus of responses:

“Yes, they are important!”

“That’s one of the reasons why we came.”

“They keep us healthy.”

One response in particular stands out: “We’ve slept under a net for six years now. In my family, before that, each person would get malaria three or four times a year. Now we go from one year to the next with no one getting sick.”

Net distribution at antenatal clinics and nationwide on immunization days is a key part of the Government of Burundi’s Malaria Control Program since pregnant women and children under 5 are the most vulnerable to malaria. Eighty-five percent of the nets distributed nationwide are donated by USAID. Over the last four years, since 2009, the Agency has donated 2,375,000 bed nets. 

In addition, in a ground-breaking pilot program which began in 2010, USAID has trained over 402 community-level health workers to quickly diagnose malaria in children using rapid tests and immediately treat those who test positive, saving many lives.

Since 2000, malaria-related mortality rates have fallen by more than 20 percent at the hospital level and morbidity has dropped by 30 percent.

“We are proud to have helped Burundi accomplish a dramatic reduction in malaria deaths,” said Dawn Liberi, U.S. ambassador to Burundi. “Though there’s more to do, this is a striking success of the partnership between the American and Burundi people.”

USAID supports the Government of Burundi’s strategy to reduce malaria throughout the country, improving maternal and child health.