Raafat Abdel Moneim Hassanein^1,2* and Adel Galal El-Shemi¹

¹Department of Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Umm Al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia
²Department of Zoonoses, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt

*Corresponding Author: Raafat Abdel Moneim Hassanein, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Umm Al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia.

Received: July 07, 2023; Published: July 27, 2023

Abstract

Background: Malaria infection is a highly serious vector-borne protozoan blood disease that affects all human ages and poses a major public health risk worldwide. This retrospective study aimed to determine the epidemiological trends of malaria cases that were reported in the different regions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) from 2020-2021.

Methods: The analyzed data were based on surveillance and registry database of the Saudi Ministry of Health and included the reported regions, patients’ age groups, and the causative Plasmodium species. Overall, a total of 6274 confirmed cases of malaria infection were reported in KSA; divided as 3658 and 2616 cases in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

Results: The highest number of the reported cases were from Jazan region (N = 3022/6274, 48.2% in 2020; and N = 1657/6274, 26.4%) in 2021), while the lowest number was reported in Al-Jouf and Al-Qurayyat regions (for each N = 1 case/year). Infection with P. falciparum was the most frequently reported species (N = 5254/6274, 83.7%), while infection with P. vivax and/or P. ovale were 899/6274 (14.3%) cases, and infection with P. malariae and mixed Plasmodium species accounted 0.16% (N = 10/6274) and 1.79% (N = 112/6274), respectively. In relation to patients’ age group, the majority of the reported malaria cases were in ≥15 years age group.

Conclusion: Taken together, the present findings indicate the persistency of malaria infection endemicity, particularly P. falciparum, in KSA and Jazan region is the most affected one. Thus, sustainable monitoring of malaria and improving its control measures is warranted.

 Keywords: Malaria; Epidemiological Trends; Saudi Arabia

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Citation

Citation: Raafat Abdel Moneim Hassanein and Adel Galal El-Shemi. “Epidemiological Trends of Malaria Infection in Saudi Arabia from 2020 to 2021: A Retrospective Study”.Acta Scientific Medical Sciences 7.8 (2023): 208-214.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2023 Raafat Abdel Moneim Hassanein and Adel Galal El-Shemi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.