What triggers dengue fever epidemics in Red Sea State, Sudan? a teaching case-study
Elfatih Mohamed Malik, Abdalla Mohammed Abdalla, Salim Salim Mohamednour Salim, Shahd Osman, Haitham Bashier, Sayed Himatt, Elmoubashar Farag, Mohamed Nageeb Abdalla, Salaheldin Mubark Elkhalifa, Elmuez Eltayeb, Yousef Khader
Corresponding author: Elfatih Mohamed Malik, Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum, Sudan 
Received: 06 Mar 2019 - Accepted: 09 Mar 2019 - Published: 16 May 2019
Domain: Infectious diseases epidemiology
Keywords: Dengue fever, epidemic, Sudan
This article is published as part of the supplement Case Studies for Public Health in the Eastern Mediterranean Region - 2019, commissioned by Yousef S Khader (yskhader@just.edu.jo).
©Elfatih Mohamed Malik et al. Pan African Medical Journal (ISSN: 1937-8688). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Cite this article: Elfatih Mohamed Malik et al. What triggers dengue fever epidemics in Red Sea State, Sudan? a teaching case-study. Pan African Medical Journal. 2019;33(1):12. [doi: 10.11604/pamj.supp.2019.33.1.18631]
Available online at: https://www.panafrican-med-journal.com/content/series/33/1/12/full
Supplement 
What triggers dengue fever epidemics in Red Sea State, Sudan? a teaching case-study
What triggers dengue fever epidemics in Red Sea State, Sudan? a teaching case-study
Elfatih Mohamed Malik1,&, Abdalla Mohammed Abdalla2, Salim Salim Mohamednour2, Shahd Osman3, Haitham Bashier4, Sayed Himatt5, Elmoubashar Farag5, Mohamed Nageeb Abdalla6, Salaheldin Mubark Elkhalifa2, Elmuez Eltayeb2, Yousef Khader7
1Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum, Sudan, 2Federal Ministry of Health, Sudan, 3Public Health Institute, Federal Ministry of Health, Sudan, 4The Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network, 5Ministry of Health, Qatar, 6Ministry of Health, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 7Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan
&Corresponding author
Elfatih Mohamed Malik, Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum, Sudan
Dengue fever (dengue hemorrhagic fever) is a mosquito-borne disease. The disease is widespread throughout the tropics, with risk factors influenced by local spatial variations of rainfall, temperature, relative humidity, the degree of urbanization and quality of vector control services in urban areas. In the East Mediterranean Region, the disease was reported from Sudan, Yemen, and Pakistan in the past five years. During 2015 -2018 many epidemics were detected, investigated and contained in Sudan. The recent epidemics in Sudan were devastating leading to many deaths and invading new areas. It is thus necessary to study triggering factors for the occurrence of dengue fever epidemics. This case study stimulates the students to analyse surveillance data, critically appraise epidemic report and to assess the epidemic contingency plan. The case study is designed for the training Novice field epidemiology trainees. The case study can be administered in 3-4 hours. Used as adjunct training material, the case study provides the trainees with competencies in analysing available data in order to identify triggering factors for dengue epidemics in Sudan and using this information to develop risk map using relevant software.
General instructions: this case study should be used as adjunct training material for novice epidemiology trainees to reinforce the concepts taught in prior lectures. The case study is ideally taught by a facilitator in groups of about 20 participants. Participants are to take turns reading the case study, usually a paragraph per student. The facilitator guides the discussion on possible responses to questions. The facilitator may make use of flip charts to illustrate certain points. Additional instructor’s notes for facilitation are coupled with each question in the instructor’s guide to aid facilitation.
Audience: this case study was developed for novice field epidemiology students. These participants are commonly health care workers working in the county departments of health whose background may be as medical doctors, nurses, environmental health officers or laboratory scientists who work in public health-related fields. Most have a health science or biology background.
Prerequisites: before using this case study, participants should have received lectures on disease surveillance, detection and control of outbreak.
Materials needed: Flash drive, flip charts, markers, computers with MS Excel and Epi Info
Level of training and associated public health activity: Novice – Outbreak investigation
Time required: 3 - 4 hours
Language: English
- Download the case study student guide
- Request the case study facilitator guide
The authors declare no competing interests.
Authors would like to acknowledge The Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network (EMPHNET) for their technical support. We wish to acknowledge residents of the epidemiology department at national and state level who conducted the outbreak investigation on which this case study is based. We also would like to thank the Federal Ministry of Health, Sudan who gave the permission to use the data.
Annex 1: Dengue fever in Red Sea State Sudan-2018
Annex 2: Dengue fever contingency plan
Annex 3: CDC UP contingency planning checklist
- Federal Ministry of Health. Annual statistical health report 2016, Khartoum. Accessed on 06 March 2019.
- Evans Buliva, Mohamed Elhakim, Nhu Nguyen Tran Minh, Amgad Elkholy, Malik. Emerging and Reemerging Diseases in the World Health Organization (WHO) Eastern Mediterranean Region - Progress, Challenges, and WHO Initiatives. 5 October 2017; 1–5. Google Scholar
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