Mathematical models of human mobility of relevance to malaria transmission in Africa.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Marshall JM
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5955928 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Humans move frequently and tend to carry parasites among areas with endemic malaria and into areas where local transmission is unsustainable. Human-mediated parasite mobility can thus sustain parasite populations in areas where they would otherwise be absent. Data describing human mobility and malaria epidemiology can help classify landscapes into parasite demographic sources and sinks, ecological concepts that have parallels in malaria control discussions of transmission foci. By linking transmission to parasite flow, it is possible to stratify landscapes for malaria control and elimination, as sources are disproportionately important to the regional persistence of malaria parasites. Here, we identify putative malaria sources and sinks for pre-elimination Namibia using malaria parasite rate (PR) maps and call data records from mobile phones, using a steady-state analysis of a malaria transmission model to infer where infections most likely occurred. We also examined how the landscape of transmission and burden changed from the pre-elimination setting by comparing the location and extent of predicted pre-elimination transmission foci with modeled incidence for 2009. This comparison suggests that while transmission was spatially focal pre-elimination, the spatial distribution of cases changed as burden declined. The changing spatial distribution of burden could be due to importation, with cases focused around importation hotspots, or due to heterogeneous application of elimination effort. While this framework is an important step towards understanding progressive changes in malaria distribution and the role of subnational transmission dynamics in a policy-relevant way, future work should account for international parasite movement, utilize real time surveillance data, and relax the steady state assumption required by the presented model.
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Project description:Mathematical models have been used to provide an explicit framework for understanding malaria transmission dynamics in human population for over 100 years. With the disease still thriving and threatening to be a major source of death and disability due to changed environmental and socio-economic conditions, it is necessary to make a critical assessment of the existing models, and study their evolution and efficacy in describing the host-parasite biology. In this article, starting from the basic Ross model, the key mathematical models and their underlying features, based on their specific contributions in the understanding of spread and transmission of malaria have been discussed. The first aim of this article is to develop, starting from the basic models, a hierarchical structure of a range of deterministic models of different levels of complexity. The second objective is to elaborate, using some of the representative mathematical models, the evolution of modelling strategies to describe malaria incidence by including the critical features of host-vector-parasite interactions. Emphasis is more on the evolution of the deterministic differential equation based epidemiological compartment models with a brief discussion on data based statistical models. In this comprehensive survey, the approach has been to summarize the modelling activity in this area so that it helps reach a wider range of researchers working on epidemiology, transmission, and other aspects of malaria. This may facilitate the mathematicians to further develop suitable models in this direction relevant to the present scenario, and help the biologists and public health personnel to adopt better understanding of the modelling strategies to control the disease.
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Project description:Recent studies have highlighted the large diversity of malaria parasites infecting African great apes (subgenus Laverania) and their strong host specificity. Although the existence of genetic incompatibilities preventing the cross-species transfer may explain host specificity, the existence of vectors with a high preference for a determined host represents another possibility. To test this hypothesis, we undertook a 15-mo-long longitudinal entomological survey in two forest regions of Gabon, where wild apes live, at different heights under the canopy. More than 2,400 anopheline mosquitoes belonging to 18 species were collected. Among them, only three species of Anopheles were found infected with ape Plasmodium: Anopheles vinckei, Anopheles moucheti, and Anopheles marshallii Their role in transmission was confirmed by the detection of the parasites in their salivary glands. Among these species, An. vinckei showed significantly the highest prevalence of infection and was shown to be able to transmit parasites of both chimpanzees and gorillas. Transmission was also shown to be conditioned by seasonal factors and by the heights of capture under the canopy. Moreover, human landing catches of sylvan Anopheles demonstrated the propensity of these three vector species to feed on humans when available. Our results suggest therefore that the strong host specificity observed in the Laveranias is not linked to a specific association between the vertebrate host and the vector species and highlight the potential role of these vectors as bridge between apes and humans.
| S-EPMC4868493 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundIt is well known that temperature has a major influence on the transmission of malaria parasites to their hosts. However, mathematical models do not always agree about the way in which temperature affects malaria transmission.MethodsIn this study, we compared six temperature dependent mortality models for the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto. The evaluation is based on a comparison between the models, and observations from semi-field and laboratory settings.ResultsOur results show how different mortality calculations can influence the predicted dynamics of malaria transmission.ConclusionsWith global warming a reality, the projected changes in malaria transmission will depend on which mortality model is used to make such predictions.
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Project description:Malaria in the Amazon is often perceived as an exclusively rural disease, but transmission has been increasingly documented within and near urban centers. Here we explore patterns and causes of urban-to-rural mobility, which places travelers at risk of malaria in Mâncio Lima, the main malaria hotspot in northwestern Brazil. We also analyze rural-to-urban mobility caused by malaria treatment seeking, which poses an additional risk of infection to urban residents. We show that the rural localities most frequently visited by urban residents-typically farming settlements in the vicinity of the town-are those with the most intense malaria transmission and also the most frequent source localities of imported malaria cases diagnosed in the town. The most mobile urban residents are typically poor males 16 to 60-years old from multi-sited households who lack a formal job. Highly mobile residents represent a priority target for more intensive and effective malaria control interventions, that cannot be readily delivered to the entire community, in this and similar urbanized endemic settings across the Amazon.
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Project description:Many attempts have been made to quantify Africa's malaria burden but none has addressed how urbanization will affect disease transmission and outcome, and therefore mortality and morbidity estimates. In 2003, 39% of Africa's 850 million people lived in urban settings; by 2030, 54% of Africans are expected to do so. We present the results of a series of entomological, parasitological and behavioural meta-analyses of studies that have investigated the effect of urbanization on malaria in Africa. We describe the effect of urbanization on both the impact of malaria transmission and the concomitant improvements in access to preventative and curative measures. Using these data, we have recalculated estimates of populations at risk of malaria and the resulting mortality. We find there were 1,068,505 malaria deaths in Africa in 2000 - a modest 6.7% reduction over previous iterations. The public-health implications of these findings and revised estimates are discussed.
| S-EPMC3130901 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundMalaria has recently been identified as a candidate for global eradication. This process will take the form of a series of national eliminations. Key issues must be considered specifically for elimination strategy when compared to the control of disease. Namely the spread of drug resistance, data scarcity and the adverse effects of failed elimination attempts. Mathematical models of various levels of complexity have been produced to consider the control and elimination of malaria infection. If available, detailed data on malaria transmission (such as the vector life cycle and behaviour, human population behaviour, the acquisition and decay of immunity, heterogeneities in transmission intensity, age profiles of clinical and subclinical infection) can be used to populate complex transmission models that can then be used to design control strategy. However, in many malaria countries reliable data are not available and policy must be formed based on information like an estimate of the average parasite prevalence.MethodsA simple deterministic model, that requires data in the form of a single estimate of parasite prevalence as an input, is developed for the purpose of comparison with other more complex models. The model is designed to include key aspects of malaria transmission and integrated control.ResultsThe simple model is shown to have similar short-term dynamic behaviour to three complex models. The model is used to demonstrate the potential of alternative methods of delivery of controls. The adverse effects on clinical infection and spread of resistance are predicted for failed elimination attempts. Since elimination strategies present an increased risk of the spread of drug resistance, the model is used to demonstrate the population level protective effect of multiple controls against this very serious threat.ConclusionA simple model structure for the elimination of malaria is suitable for situations where data are sparse yet strategy design requirements are urgent with the caveat that more complex models, populated with new data, would provide more information, especially in the long-term.
| S-EPMC2754494 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundMpumalanga in South Africa is committed to eliminating malaria by 2018 and efforts are increasing beyond that necessary for malaria control. Differential Equation models may be used to study the incidence and spread of disease with an important benefit being the ability to enact exogenous change on the system to predict impact without committing any real resources. The model is a deterministic non-linear ordinary differential equation representation of the dynamics of the human population. The model is fitted to weekly data of treated cases from 2002 to 2008, and then validated with data from 2009 to 2012. Elimination-focused interventions such as the scale-up of vector control, mass drug administration, a focused mass screen and treat campaign and foreign source reduction are applied to the model to assess their potential impact on transmission.ResultsScaling up vector control by 10% and 20% resulted in substantial predicted decreases in local infections with little impact on imported infections. Mass drug administration is a high impact but short-lived intervention with predicted decreases in local infections of less that one infection per year. However, transmission reverted to pre-intervention levels within three years. Focused mass screen and treat campaigns at border-entry points are predicted to result in a knock-on decrease in local infections through a reduction in the infectious reservoir. This knock-on decrease in local infections was also predicted to be achieved through foreign source reduction. Elimination was only predicted to be possible under the scenario of zero imported infections in Mpumalanga.ConclusionsA constant influx of imported infections show that vector control alone will not be able to eliminate local malaria as it is insufficient to interrupt transmission. Both mass interventions have a large and immediate impact. Yet in countries with a large migrant population, these interventions may fail due to the reintroduction of parasites and their impact may be short-lived. While all strategies (in isolation or combined) contributed to decreasing local infections, none was predicted to decrease local infections to zero. The number of imported infections highlights the importance of reducing imported infections at source, and a regional approach to malaria elimination.
| S-EPMC4127654 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Local and cross-border importation remain major challenges to malaria elimination and are difficult to measure using traditional surveillance data. To address this challenge, we systematically collected parasite genetic data and travel history from thousands of malaria cases across northeastern Namibia and estimated human mobility from mobile phone data. We observed strong fine-scale spatial structure in local parasite populations, providing positive evidence that the majority of cases were due to local transmission. This result was largely consistent with estimates from mobile phone and travel history data. However, genetic data identified more detailed and extensive evidence of parasite connectivity over hundreds of kilometers than the other data, within Namibia and across the Angolan and Zambian borders. Our results provide a framework for incorporating genetic data into malaria surveillance and provide evidence that both strengthening of local interventions and regional coordination are likely necessary to eliminate malaria in this region of Southern Africa.
| S-EPMC6478435 | biostudies-literature