All of Zambia is malaria country. Tsetse flies set the dress code on game drives.

Are there mosquitoes in Zambia? Yes, and the CDC recommends malaria prevention medicine for the whole country in every month, from Lusaka and Livingstone to South Luangwa, the Lower Zambezi and Kafue. On a dry-season safari the daytime biter is the tsetse fly, which can carry sleeping sickness in a few valleys.

Malaria: every park, every month

Malaria mosquitoes bite from dusk to dawn, which on safari means sundowners, night drives and dinner outside. Repellent before sunset (DEET 20% or more, or picaridin 20%), long sleeves after dark and a net or screened room overnight cover those hours. The CDC advises against swimming in fresh water because of schistosomiasis, which rules out the Zambezi, the Luangwa and Lake Kariba.

Zambia is also on the CDC's Level 2 Global Polio notice, updated September 23, 2026, so ask the clinic about the one-time adult polio booster. And the World Health Organization's Africa office reported a cholera outbreak centered on Lusaka District in early October 2026, so choose safe food and water in the capital.

Tsetse flies on game drives

The CDC's Zambia page lists African sleeping sickness, spread by tsetse fly bites. The Luangwa Valley is a recognized focus of the rhodesiense form, and WHO figures cited in 2016 put Zambia at fewer than 100 cases a year, mainly from Luangwa Valley districts such as Mambwe, home to Mfuwe. The CDC reported four traveler cases tied to the Zambezi Valley, which spans southern Zambia and northern Zimbabwe, between August 2024 and January 2025. In Kafue, a lodge owner bitten repeatedly while tracking a wounded animal was diagnosed with sleeping sickness in 2016, the park's first reported case in more than 50 years. And in a 2022 study, researchers trapping tsetse in eastern Zambia found the human-infective parasite in 2 of 278 flies.

On the drive itself, tsetse are a daytime nuisance. They bite through thin clothing and gather on vehicles that slow or stop in woodland. The CDC says they are drawn to bright and contrasting colors, and visitors add dark blue and black, so wear thick, loose, neutral-colored long sleeves and trousers and keep them on for the whole drive. Repellent has a reputation for doing little against them. In the weeks after the trip, a fever or a sore, swollen bite means a doctor visit, and you mention sleeping sickness as well as malaria.

When to go

June to August, the cool dry season, tends to have the fewest mosquitoes and, by visitors' accounts, fewer tsetse. September and October are prime game-viewing months but hot, and visitors report tsetse getting worse toward October. The November–April rains tend to bring the most mosquitoes. The CDC's malaria advice applies in every month.

Where you're going

Livingstone and the falls have their own page. Our Victoria Falls briefing covers both sides of the river and Chobe day trips. Crossing to Mana Pools or Hwange? See Zimbabwe.

What travelers report

Paraphrased from TripAdvisor threads, newest first, and linked so you can read them in full. Tsetse vary a lot by park, road and month, and these trips are a few years old.

• Zambia safari (trip report) · September · 2023

  A September 2023 trip report said there were tsetse flies, but not as bad as on the poster's 2019 trip. TripAdvisor ↗

• Kafue, South Luangwa and Lower Zambezi · October · 2021

  On an October 2021 trip, the poster found tsetse minimal in South Luangwa and the Lower Zambezi but anywhere from terrible to tolerable in Kafue. They were heaviest on the tree-lined road to Busanga Plains, where the bites came on the slower drive back, and rarely a problem on the open plains. Lodges burned elephant dung on drives, which helped without stopping the flies. TripAdvisor ↗

• Livingstone

  A traveler worried after starting malaria pills late and getting about eight bites. A reply said the odds of an infected bite were remote and to keep taking the pills through the trip and for four weeks after, and another said to tell a doctor about the trip if a fever appears up to a year later. 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 Zambia and which parks you visited. After time in a malaria area, that rule holds for a year.

Traveler questions