Spatio-temporal of malaria distribution in Sibu division, Sarawak. A five years study (2014-2018)

The emergence of malaria has become one of the major public health problems in Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia. The number of reported malaria cases is continuously increasing in recent years. The aim of this study was to analyse the spatiotemporal pattern of malaria cases in Sibu division between the years of 2014 until 2018. Descriptive analysis was done to investigate the malaria incidence by time, person and place. Further analysis was done by mapping all malaria cases reported from 2014 until 2018 by using GIS software. Distribution of malaria cases were mapped in term of crude incidence. People mostly get infected were farmers and those groups of people most likely to spend most of their time in the jungle with high risk of getting malaria infection in their daily life. Therefore for Selangau and Kanowit district, the distribution mostly clustered in rural area since the malaria cases in both districts are mostly indigenous cases that diagnosed with zoonotic malaria also known as positive with Plasmodium knowlesi. Meanwhile, in Sibu district, the pattern mostly clustered in Sibujaya area because the malaria cases were mostly classified as Imported A cases that diagnosed with positive for Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium malariae, and Plasmodium ovale, which were among the loggers who came back from endemic countries for malaria including Indonesia, India, Mexico and Africa.