Malaria: how to prevent, spot, and treat it

Malaria is spread by mosquito bites and is common in lowland parts of Ethiopia. Learn the warning signs and when to go to a health post.

On this page

• What is malaria?
• Where in Ethiopia is malaria common?
• Symptoms
• When to go to a health post
• How to prevent malaria
• How malaria is treated
• Malaria in pregnancy and in children

What is malaria

Malaria is a serious illness caused by parasites. The parasites get into your body when an infected mosquito bites you.

Most malaria in Ethiopia is caused by two parasites: Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax. P. falciparum is the more dangerous one. Without treatment, it can kill within days.

Malaria is not spread from person to person like a cold or flu. You cannot catch it from touching someone who has it.

Where in Ethiopia is malaria common

Malaria happens most often in areas below 2,000 metres above sea level. That includes much of:

• Gambella
• Benishangul-Gumuz
• Afar
• Somali Region
• Parts of Amhara, Oromia, Southern Nations, and Tigray

Some highland areas that used to be malaria-free now see cases too. If you live in or travel to a lowland area, you are at risk.

Malaria cases increase during and just after the rainy season (July to October), when mosquitos breed in standing water.

Symptoms

Malaria symptoms usually start 10 to 15 days after an infected mosquito bites you. Sometimes they start weeks or months later.

The first signs are like a bad flu:

• Fever (often coming and going in waves)
• Chills and shaking
• Headache
• Muscle aches
• Feeling very tired
• Sometimes vomiting and diarrhoea

::: urgentAdvice severity=“urgent”

Urgent advice: go to a health post the same day if:

• You have a fever
• You have been in a malaria area in the last month
• Or you live in a malaria area

Do not wait for symptoms to get worse. Malaria can get very serious in one or two days. :::

Severe malaria — go to a hospital right away

Sometimes malaria becomes life-threatening quickly. Get to a hospital or the biggest health facility you can reach if the person has:

• Trouble breathing
• Yellow skin or eyes (jaundice)
• Confusion or unusual sleepiness
• A seizure
• Very little or no urine
• Bleeding that will not stop
• Cannot keep food or water down

Children under 5, pregnant women, and people living with HIV can go from mild malaria to severe malaria very fast. Do not wait.

When to go to a health post

Go to the nearest health post today if you or someone in your family has a fever and lives in or has visited a malaria area recently. A simple finger-prick test can confirm malaria in about 15 minutes.

Treatment works well when it starts early. Treatment costs are covered under the national malaria programme at government health posts.

How to prevent malaria

There is no vaccine that fully prevents malaria in Ethiopia yet. Prevention means avoiding mosquito bites and removing places where mosquitos breed.

::: doList

Do

• Sleep under a long-lasting insecticide-treated net (LLIN) every night, all year
• Make sure the net has no holes; tuck it under the mattress
• Cover your arms and legs after sunset — that is when the mosquitos that carry malaria bite
• Close windows and doors from dusk onward, or use screens
• If you have a home spray from the health post (indoor residual spraying), do not paint or wash the walls for several months after
• Empty containers that hold standing water — buckets, cans, old tires, blocked gutters :::

::: dontList

Don’t

• Do not skip using your net just because it is hot — nets save lives
• Do not stop malaria medicine early even if you feel better
• Do not use expired antimalarial tablets
• Do not rely on traditional remedies alone if you suspect malaria — go to a health post :::

::: factBox

Good to know

Bed nets from the health post are given free of charge. Ask your health extension worker if you do not have one for every sleeping place in your home. :::

How malaria is treated

Malaria is treated with tablets. The exact tablets depend on which parasite you have and how sick you are.

For uncomplicated malaria caused by P. falciparum, the standard treatment in Ethiopia is artemether-lumefantrine (Coartem) taken for 3 days.

For P. vivax, treatment includes chloroquine followed by primaquine to clear parasites hiding in the liver.

Important rules:

• Finish the full course, even if you feel better after one day
• Take tablets with fatty food (milk, oil, meat) if you can — this helps them work
• If you vomit within 30 minutes of a dose, take that dose again
• Go back to the health post if you feel worse after 48 hours of treatment

Do not share your tablets with someone else. Do not save some for later. Undertreated malaria comes back stronger and can become drug-resistant.

::: urgentAdvice severity=“emergency”

Emergency: go to a hospital now if:

• You cannot swallow the tablets
• You are vomiting everything
• You had a seizure
• The person is confused, very sleepy, or unconscious

Severe malaria is treated with injections in a hospital, not tablets at home. :::

Malaria in pregnancy and in children

Pregnant women get sicker from malaria than others, and it can harm the baby. If you are pregnant and live in or travel to a malaria area:

• Sleep under an insecticide-treated net every night
• Ask at your antenatal visit about preventive treatment (IPTp)
• Go to the health post at the first sign of fever

Children under 5 are the group most likely to die from malaria. They can go from mild fever to unconscious in a single day. Any fever in a child from a malaria area is an emergency — go to a health post the same day.

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Reviewed by Dr. Hanna Alemayehu, MD, MPH — Family medicine, Addis Ababa Last reviewed: 5 September 2026 · Next review due: 5 September 2028

Sources:

1. World Health Organization. World Malaria Report 2024. December 2024.
2. Federal Ministry of Health, Ethiopia. National Malaria Guideline, 4th edition. June 2023.
3. Ethiopian Public Health Institute. Weekly Public Health Bulletin, Q2 2024. July 2024.

Content adapted from the WHO malaria fact sheet (CC-BY 4.0) and the Federal Ministry of Health Ethiopia National Malaria Guideline. Reviewed for Ethiopian context by Dr. Hanna Alemayehu.

Draft notes (delete before publish)

• Word count: ~920 words (under 1500 target ✓)
• Grade level target 6-8: uses short sentences, everyday words, active voice
• Uses all 4 custom Portable Text patterns from schema: urgentAdvice (×2), doList, dontList, factBox
• isTimeCritical: true → ArticlePage will render EmergencyBanner at top + before “When to see a doctor” section per component-specs/ArticlePage.md §3.5
• All medical claims sourced to WHO / MoH / EPHI
• Ethiopian context throughout: named regions, health posts (not clinics), health extension workers, IPTp reference
• Dr. Hanna Alemayehu is a placeholder — B2B-22 recruits real clinical reviewers before publish
• Amharic translation: B2B-25