Epidemiology of Malaria in Saudi Arabia

Running head: EPIDEMIOLOGY
Epidemiology
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1EPIDEMIOLOGY
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,