Disease Mapping in Oman

Sultanate of Oman is one of the few countries in gulf region which has witnessed remarkable social and economic grown over the past couple of decades. The growths are best reflected in the well organized and efficient health care system. With these achievements the country has witnessed an epidemiologic shift in the disease pattern. Particularly, there has been a significant decrease in the communicable disease incident rate and in the mortality and morbidity rates of infant and under five children. But it is still unsure whether people are not vulnerable to many communicable diseases, maternal and child health and nutrition, due to many hidden socio-economic factors including possibly due to lack of hygienic food and clean water, population mobility, ecological imbalance, industrialization, improper use of antibiotics and or insecticides and globalization of food supplies and changes in food processing and packing. Despite recent progress, the country is still struggling to reduce the burden of diseases because of those hidden factors. About 25% of the disease burden in Oman is attributable to communicable diseases (Al-Lawati et al., 2008). The incidence and prevalence of such diseases vary over the regions as the socio-demographic conditions vary. Many researchers have investigated the causes for disease but very limited study conducted to identify the region/area with high or low prevalence. Identifying such areas would be convenient for government to give special attention to improve them. The process of detecting the area with high prevalence is termed as disease mapping. This study aims at providing guidelines for mapping the common communicable diseases in the Sultanate of Oman. Key word: Disease, Communicable, Disease-mapping