Malarial Epidemiology among Patients in Al-Medina Al-Munawara, KSA

Abstract

Worldwide, malaria is the most important disease caused by parasites and responsible for a yearly estimation of 225 million clinical cases. The risk of the disease covers almost half of the world’s population and the annual death has been estimated as 800.000. Children under five years of age are mainly affected. Pregnant women and adults with immunosuppression become victims of cerebral manifestations or anaemia and frequently die. Almost 40% of the world's population is at risk to acquire the infection. Human malaria is caused by four Plasmodium species among which the most prevalent is Plasmodium falciparum. Because of the higher global prevalence, morbidity and mortality rate of P. falciparum, most research efforts on malaria pathogenesis have been focused on this species. Recent studies have reported the clinical outcomes that originate from regions where P. falciparum and P. vivax are equally prevalent. This in turn could make the clinical tools inappropriate for use in managing vivax mono infections. Thus, the present study was aimed to identify the epidemiology and clinical features of the malarial cases of the Referral laboratory, Al Madinah, Saudi Arabia. A retrospective case series study was conducted among the patients reported from January 2016 to December 2016 using a specially designed data collection form. Out of the 182 confirmed cases, 143 were non-saudi and 39 were Saudi cases. Most of the cases reported in the month of September due to seasonal change. Gender distribution showed a higher dominance of male patients compared to females. No cases were reported to be caused due to P.malariae. The predominant species was found to be P.Vivax (87%) while P.falciparum with only 13% incidence. Further investigations in large sample sizes are recommended to explore the other aspects in reducing the malaria burden.