The Min­istry of Health is in­ves­ti­gat­ing an out­break of malar­ia cas­es in South Trinidad, where five cas­es have been con­firmed as of April 2, 2025. This in­cludes the pri­ma­ry source, mak­ing it the first record­ed malar­ia cas­es in the coun­try for the year.

Since Trinidad and To­ba­go is not en­dem­ic for malar­ia, most con­firmed cas­es are ei­ther im­port­ed or in­tro­duced. Be­tween 2015 and 2024, there were 153 con­firmed cas­es, av­er­ag­ing 15 per year.

The five cas­es in 2025 are clus­tered with­in a well-de­fined ge­o­graph­ic area, prompt­ing im­me­di­ate vec­tor con­trol mea­sures by the In­sect Vec­tor Con­trol Di­vi­sion (IVCD) fol­low­ing the first case on March 27, 2025.

These mea­sures in­clude spray­ing homes with­in at least a one-mile ra­dius us­ing Ul­tra Low Vol­ume (ULV) meth­ods, con­duct­ing ther­mal fog­ging, ap­ply­ing in­ter­nal resid­ual spray­ing (IRS) for long-last­ing in­sec­ti­cide ef­fects, and in­spect­ing homes for Anophe­les mos­qui­to breed­ing sites. Pub­lic health of­fi­cials have al­so car­ried out nec­es­sary screen­ing pro­to­cols, in­clud­ing con­tact trac­ing.

The Min­istry urges high-risk in­di­vid­u­als, such as those liv­ing near forest­ed ar­eas, farm­ers, hunters, and hik­ers, to take pre­cau­tions like wear­ing pro­tec­tive cloth­ing, us­ing mos­qui­to nets, and ap­ply­ing in­sect re­pel­lents. Any­one ex­pe­ri­enc­ing ear­ly symp­toms such as fever, chills, headaches, or fa­tigue should seek med­ical at­ten­tion prompt­ly.

The Min­istry will con­tin­ue to up­date the pub­lic as re­quired.