Botswana's big safari areas carry CDC malaria advice. The Delta's tsetse flies are gone.

Are there mosquitoes in Botswana? Yes, and the main safari areas, from the Okavango Delta and Moremi to Chobe and the Makgadikgadi pans, are in districts where the CDC recommends malaria prevention medicine. A June–September safari falls in the dry season, when visitors report few mosquitoes, and the Delta has had no tsetse flies since spraying in 2001–2002.

Malaria and the safari districts

Outside those districts, malaria is rare or absent. The CDC recommends bite precautions only for Kgalagadi North, Kgatleng, Kweneng and Southern, and says there is no malaria transmission in Gaborone.

In 2025, cases surged from March after unusually heavy rainfall, and by the end of May WHO's Africa office reported more than 2,300 confirmed cases, including nearly 100 severe infections and 8 deaths, a marked increase on the same period of 2024. The hardest-hit districts, in WHO's words, were "Okavango Ngami, Chobe, Tutume, and Boteti," and cases also appeared in Ghanzi, malaria-free since 2010. WHO's Africa bulletin for October 5–11, 2026 lists no malaria event for Botswana.

Dry-season safaris, and what the rains change

June to September is the dry season and peak safari time, and visitors tend to report few mosquitoes in Chobe, Moremi and the Delta. June to August nights are cold. The Delta's floodwaters tend to arrive in the dry season, though, so there is still standing water, and the Chobe riverfront and Delta channels at dusk tend to be the likeliest places to meet mosquitoes. October heat tends to bring more insects, and the rains, roughly November to March, the most.

Malaria mosquitoes bite from dusk to dawn, which covers sundowner drives, mokoro trips and river cruises. Put on repellent before you head out, wear long sleeves and pants from sunset, and sleep under a net or in a screened tent. The CDC lists African tick-bite fever, so check for ticks after walking safaris. It also warns of schistosomiasis and leptospirosis and advises, "Avoid swimming in fresh, unchlorinated water, such as lakes, ponds, or rivers." That includes the Delta's lagoons and channels.

No tsetse in the Okavango Delta

Tsetse flies, the painful daytime biters of Tanzania's Northern Circuit, are gone from the Delta as far as surveys can tell. Botswana's Tsetse Control Division ran five rounds of aerial deltamethrin spraying over about 6,200 square miles (16,000 km²), the northern half in June–September 2001 and the southern half in May–August 2002. Traps and fly-rounds from September 2002 to November 2005 caught none, and a 2025 review lists the Delta among successful tsetse eradications. The CDC's Botswana page doesn't list sleeping sickness.

Where you're going

Adding Victoria Falls, or coming in from Namibia's Caprivi Strip? See our Victoria Falls and Namibia briefings.

What travelers report

Paraphrased from TripAdvisor forum threads and linked so you can read them in full. None carries a year, and the season and your camp change the picture.

• Chobe, Moremi, Okavango Delta and Maun · September

  Posters who had visited in September said they barely noticed mosquitoes in Chobe, Moremi or the Delta, but did at their riverside lodge in Maun at dusk. They called early-September malaria risk very low but not zero, and told the asker, who had an immune concern, to check with their own doctor. TripAdvisor ↗

• Okavango Delta and Linyanti

  Asked about tsetse flies, a replier said tsetse have been eradicated from these areas of Botswana and that they had never seen one. TripAdvisor ↗

• Botswana safari areas

  Posters said the tsetse eradication effort had worked well and the flies are not an issue, though one was unsure they are completely gone. A long-time visitor said they never had a tsetse problem and had seen the traps set up in parks and concessions. TripAdvisor ↗

One more rule outlasts the trip. Any fever during or after your trip means a doctor visit, and you tell them you were in Botswana and which camps you stayed in. After time in the malaria districts, that rule holds for a year.

Traveler questions