Determination of Imported Malaria Cases in Hatay by the Use of Molecular Methods

Malaria, being among the most important diseases throughout history, is still an important public health problem among parasitic diseases due to increasing population movements with various reasons such as migration, war and travel. According to WHO data each year 300-350 million people get exposed to malaria, each year 1.5-2.7 million people die from malaria and also 40% of the world's population is still at risk for this disease. According to World Health Organisation (WHO) data, imported cases were not reported since 2013 in our country. However among imported cases Plasmodium falciparum malaria can be observed. The aim of this study wasto draw attention to the imported malaria cases increasing gradually and to the importance of the chemoprophylaxis in terms of malaria before travelling. In the study, male patients who have admitted to Hatay Province Malaria Center or Mustafa Kemal University Infectious Disease Department, ages between 25-60 years, were analyzed. All of the patients have worked abroad before. Patients were mostly from Sudan but there were also patients from endemic regions such as Africa, Nigeria, Pakistan, Mali island. The cases were evaluated according to age, gender and whether they had travel stories in Turkey or abroad. Blood samples taken from the patients were firstly prepared by thin and thick smear preparations and examined microscopically by staining with Giemsa stain method. Samples that were found positive by microscopic examination were impregnated on drying papers and genotyped using nested-PCR. Out of the 30 samples from patients who had traveled to endemic countries before, determined as positive by microscopical examination and genotyped by nested-PCR, 16 of them were identified as P.falciparum, six of them as P.vivax and eight of them as P.falciparum/ P.vivax. The study suggested that malaria prophylaxis has to be applied before travelling to endemic countries, in return imported malaria has to be considered one of the first diseases in mind and people who will travel should be informed about this disease before travel.