Epidemiology of Malaria in Saudi Arabia

This article discusses the epidemiology of malaria in Saudi Arabia, including its manifestations, burden, goals, interventions, progress, transmission, and policies to address it.

Running head: EPIDEMIOLOGY
Epidemiology
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1.
Manifestations: Malaria is a disease caused by the bite of an infected anopheles mosquito and it
is mainly caused by Plasmodium vivax infection. Clinical manifestations of malaria include high
fever with shiver and chills, sweating, headache, weakness and palpitations (Tizifa et al., 2018).
Burden: The burden of the disease is understood from the fact that it is the major cause of death
in different tropical and sub-tropical countries. In 2017, 219 million cases of malaria occurred
worldwide. Although the prevalence is less than 20 millions compared to 2010, however current
issue is that little progress has been seen in eradicating malaria malaria for the period 2015-2017
(World Health Organization, 2018). . In case of Saudi Arabia also, despite decrease in malaria
incidence in several areas, the current issue is increase in number of imported cases (World
Health Organization, 2016).
Goals: The main goal is to totally eradicate malaria and understand future course of action
needed to improve current system of surveillance and malaria prevention in Saudi Arabia.
Intervention: Some of the important interventions to prevent and treat malaria include
chemoprophylaxis and use of personal protective measures against the mosquito vector.
Protective clothing, insect repellents and insecticide-impregnated bed nets can reduce exposed to
night feeding Anopheles mosquito. Community wide measures like health awareness programs
and focal spraying in breeding sites helps to combat the infection (Tizifa et al., 2018).
Progress: The Saudi Arabia government is looking to eradicate malaria completely. The
transmission rate has reduced over the last few years. This has become possible because of
systematic control programmes and improvement in surveillance and vector control. However,

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the current issue is the rise in cases from 82 malaria cases in 2015 to 272 cases in 2016. The
increase in number of imported malaria cases is also a major concern (Soliman et al., 2018).
Research: Current epidemiological research on Malaria focus on investigating about factors that
lead to rise in imported cases and identify new therapeutic management techniques to control
malaria cases in Saudi Arabia.
2. Transmission of malaria: Malaria is a disease that is transmitted to others by the bite of
infected anopheline mosquitoes. The spread of infection also occurs by the inoculation of
infected blood or through congenital means. The transmission cycle starts with an uninfected
mosquito which becomes infected after feeding on an individual with malaria. The internal
malaria parasites are transmitted through the bite of the infected mosquito. The parasites enter
into the liver and after getting matured, it infects the red blood cells. Symptoms of malaria starts
at this stage and the transmission cycle repeats if an uninfected mosquito bites the person with
malaria infection (Cowman et al., 2016).
3. Three policies to address malaria
There are three policies that best addressed malaria infection in Saudi Arabia. The first
includes the National Malaria Drug Policy. This has played a role in prompt treatment of
confirmed cases, delaying spread of resistance to anti-malarial drugs and focus on reduction of
transmission in endemic areas disease (Ministry of Health, 2018). The second policy includes the
National Policy on Malaria case management played a role in early detection of new cases and
improved surveillance for malaria. The anti-malaria treatment played a role in first line-treatment
of severe malaria and unconfirmed malaria cases. This occurred because of the therapeutic
efficacy of anti-malarial medicine in use (Ministry of Health, 2018).

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References:
Cowman, A. F., Healer, J., Marapana, D., & Marsh, K. (2016). Malaria: biology and
disease. Cell, 167(3), 610-624
Ministry of Health (2018). National Malaria Drug Policy. Retrieved from:
https://www.moh.gov.sa/Ministry/MediaCenter/Publications/Documents/2018-07-29-
002.pdf.
Ministry of Health. (2017). The national policy of malaria case management in The Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia. Retrieved from:
https://www.moh.gov.sa/Ministry/MediaCenter/Publications/Documents/0100.pdf
Soliman, R. H., Garcia-Aranda, P., Elzagawy, S. M., Hussein, B. E. S., Mayah, W. W., Ramirez,
A. M., ... & Rubio, J. M. (2018). Imported and autochthonous malaria in West Saudi
Arabia: results from a reference hospital. Malaria journal, 17(1), 286.
Tizifa, T. A., Kabaghe, A. N., McCann, R. S., van den Berg, H., Van Vugt, M., & Phiri, K. S.
(2018). Prevention Efforts for Malaria. Current tropical medicine reports, 5(1), 41-50.
World Health Organization. (2016). Eliminating malaria (No. WHO/HTM/GMP/2016.3). World
Health Organization.
World Health Organization. (2018). Malaria Retrieved from:
https://www.who.int/malaria/media/world-malaria-report-2018/en/