Epidemiology of Malaria during the Summer Season among the Provinces of Pakistan

Abstract

Malaria is an important public health problem in Pakistan especially during the summer season when environmental conditions are favorable for malaria transmission. The objectives of this study were to find out prevalence of malaria and its distribution in different age groups, gender, species and in each month among patients visiting hospitals in Pakistan. Retrospective cross-sectional study was performed with laboratory records from April to July 2025. The patient records with complete demographic and diagnostic data were 400 in total and were included in the analysis. Laboratory registers were used to extract data which were analyzed using descriptive statistics in MS-Excel. The prevalence of malaria was determined as the percentage of positives to the number of samples tested. Of the 400 patients tested, 82 were positive to malaria with overall prevalence of 20.5%. The prevalence was higher among children (0-14 years of age) (24.8%) than among adults (15 years of age and older) (15.8%). The prevalence of malaria was also higher in males (23.6%) as compared to females (16.7%). Species analysis showed that Plasmodium vivax was the common species resulting 70.7% positive; Plasmodium falciparum was 26.8% positive and mixed infection was 2.4% positive. P. vivax was the predominant species in both children and adults. Malaria prevalence showed an increasing trend during the summer season as the prevalence increased from 15.8% to 26.0% from May to August during the monthly analysis. The results show that malaria is still highly prevalent during summer months in Pakistan with a greater impact on children and males. The high prevalence of P. vivax and the rise in prevalence at the end of the summer emphasize the need to build up surveillance, prevention, and prompt control intervention to limit malaria transmission in the area.

Keywords: Malaria, Prevalence, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium falciparum, Children, Summer Season, Pakistan.