Health of­fi­cials have con­firmed an eighth case of malar­ia in Trinidad and To­ba­go for 2025, fol­low­ing en­hanced sur­veil­lance ef­forts in south Trinidad.

The case was iden­ti­fied by the In­sect Vec­tor Con­trol Di­vi­sion (IVCD) as part of on­go­ing mon­i­tor­ing un­der the Min­istry of Health’s (MOH) malar­ia pre­ven­tion and con­trol pro­to­cols.

Malar­ia is not cur­rent­ly en­dem­ic to Trinidad and To­ba­go. How­ev­er, be­tween 2015 and 2024, health au­thor­i­ties record­ed 153 con­firmed cas­es—an av­er­age of 15 per year—with most be­ing im­port­ed or in­tro­duced from abroad.

Malar­ia is a vec­tor-borne dis­ease caused by Plas­mod­i­um par­a­sites, trans­mit­ted by fe­male Anophe­les mos­qui­toes, which tend to bite at night. Un­like dengue, chikun­gun­ya and Zi­ka, malar­ia is not spread by a virus, and the Aedes mos­qui­to is not its pri­ma­ry vec­tor.

Ear­ly symp­toms typ­i­cal­ly ap­pear 10 to 15 days af­ter in­fec­tion and in­clude fever, chills, headaches and fa­tigue. The MOH is urg­ing any­one ex­pe­ri­enc­ing these symp­toms to vis­it their near­est health fa­cil­i­ty im­me­di­ate­ly.

Health au­thor­i­ties con­tin­ue to en­cour­age high-risk groups—such as res­i­dents in forest­ed ar­eas, farm­ers, hunters, pro­tec­tive ser­vices per­son­nel, hik­ers and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists—to take pre­cau­tions. These in­clude wear­ing long-sleeved, light-coloured cloth­ing, us­ing mos­qui­to nets while sleep­ing, and ap­ply­ing re­pel­lents, coils or va­por­is­ers.