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Zimbabwe has a
long history of malaria outbreaks as a result of its high altitude. Areas
above 1500m such as Harare
are usually malaria free, while areas below 900m are normally a high risk to malaria,
particularly in the north of the country. It is the areas between 900 – 1500m
which are generally unstable for malaria and epidemic in nature: these areas
can have huge differences in malaria transmission from one year to another.
From this site you can download a number of
investigations made in various localities of Zimbabwe. The attached reports
cover a number of specific malaria outbreaks in Zimbabwe including a report which
covers malaria outbreaks over the last 100 years. This latter study lead to a
publication in the Transactions of Royal Society for Tropical Hygiene and
Medicine which predicts that malaria outbreaks in Zimbabwe are preceded by
short winters with warm temperatures at the end of the winter.
The reports include a study of a malaria outbreak
in the south of Zimbabwe
at the newly built Munyuchi Dam in 1994, an outbreak in Mutoko District in
the north of the country and a report from Hurungwe District also in the
north of the country in 1997. In this latter report, it is stated that the
outbreak was probably not malaria but a result of an upsurge of the virus
chikungunya which had been previously reported in the area.
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