Introduction and objectives:

Despite vast efforts for eradicating and controlling of malaria, this infection is known as one of infections with high incidence and mortality especially in endemic parts of the world. In few cities of Iran like Yazd, that hosted many Afghan immigrants, who came from endemic areas caused importing cases of malaria. The general purpose of this study was to determine the demographic parameter of people, who infected with malaria for handling and treatment of them.

Methods:

A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on all patients with malaria, who had been referred to Yazd health centres from 1990 to 2000. In this decade totally 3193 cases were been diagnosed with positive blood smear. The demographic parameter of patients was prepared using SPSS software.

Results:

The maximum and minimum incidence of malaria was seen in 1993 (847 cases) and 1997 (114 cases) respectively. The most prevalent species’ was Plasmodium vivax (83%) but P. malariae was detected only in 0.1% of cases. Majority of infected patients were Afghan immigrants and fortunately no drug resistant case was seen in this study.

Conclusion:

According our results, we suggested that due to suitable climate conditions for various species of anopheline mosquitoes in Yazd province and also increasing the frequency of Afghan immigrants entered to this province, there is a very high risk of malaria transmission in this area and it is necessary to have more attention for controlling of this infection.