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Namibia, a low malaria transmission country targeting elimination, has made substantial progress in reducing malaria burden through improved case management, widespread indoor residual spraying and distribution of insecticidal nets. The country's diverse landscape includes regions with varying population densities and geographical niches, with the north of the country prone to periodic outbreaks.
Malaria risk maps are crucial for controlling and eliminating malaria by identifying areas of varying transmission risk. In the Greater Mekong Subregion, these maps guide interventions and resource allocation. This article focuses on analysing changes in malaria transmission and developing fine-scale risk maps using five years of routine surveillance data in Laos (2017-2021). The study employed data from 1160 geolocated health facilities in Laos, along with high-resolution environmental data.
The rising burden of mosquito-borne diseases in Europe extends beyond urban areas, encompassing rural and semi-urban regions near managed and natural wetlands evidenced by recent outbreaks of Usutu and West Nile viruses. While wetland management policies focus on biodiversity and ecosystem services, few studies explore the impact on mosquito vectors.
Current malaria elimination targets must withstand a colossal challenge-resistance to the current gold standard antimalarial drug, namely artemisinin derivatives. If artemisinin resistance significantly expands to Africa or India, cases and malaria-related deaths are set to increase substantially.
Malaria is a deadly disease caused by Plasmodium spp. Several blood phenotypes have been associated with malarial resistance, which suggests a genetic component to immune protection.
As both mechanistic and geospatial malaria modeling methods become more integrated into malaria policy decisions, there is increasing demand for strategies that combine these two methods. This paper introduces a novel archetypes-based methodology for generating high-resolution intervention impact maps based on mechanistic model simulations. An example configuration of the framework is described and explored.
We aimed to assess safety, tolerability, and Plasmodium vivax relapse rates of ultra-short course (3.5 days) high-dose (1 mg/kg twice daily) primaquine (PQ) for uncomplicated malaria because of any Plasmodium species in children randomized to early- or delayed treatment.
Seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine plus amodiaquine prevents millions of clinical malaria cases in children younger than 5 years in Africa's Sahel region. However, Plasmodium falciparum parasites partially resistant to sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (with quintuple mutations) potentially threaten the protective effectiveness of SMC. We evaluated the spread of quintuple-mutant parasites and the clinical consequences.
Climatic conditions are a key determinant of malaria transmission intensity, through their impacts on both the parasite and its mosquito vectors. Mathematical models relating climatic conditions to malaria transmission can be used to develop spatial maps of climatic suitability for malaria. These maps underpin efforts to quantify the distribution and burden of malaria in humans, enabling improved monitoring and control.
In recent decades, field and semi-field studies of malaria transmission have gathered geographic-specific information about mosquito ecology, behaviour and their sensitivity to interventions. Mathematical models of malaria transmission can incorporate such data to infer the likely impact of vector control interventions and hence guide malaria control strategies in various geographies.