Malaria, climate variability, and interventions: modelling transmission dynamics (Publications)
of the relative impact of climate change on malaria dynamics is a complex problem. Climate is a well-known factor that plays a crucial role in driving malaria outbreaks in epidemic transmission areas. However [...] influence in endemic environments with intensive malaria control interventions is not fully understood, mainly due to the scarcity of high-quality, long-term malaria data. The demographic surveillance systems [...] effects of weather variability on the burden of malaria. Here, using a...
Modelling the impact of interventions on imported, introduced and indigenous malaria infections in Zanzibar, Tanzania (Publications)
Malaria cases can be classified as imported, introduced or indigenous cases. The World Health Organization's definition of malaria elimination requires an area to demonstrate that no new indigenous cases [...] cases have occurred in the last three years. Here, we present a stochastic metapopulation model of malaria transmission that distinguishes between imported, introduced and indigenous cases, and can be used [...] interventions in a setting with low transmission and ongoing case importation....
Acceptability, feasibility, drug safety, and effectiveness of a pilot mass drug administration with a single round of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine plus... (Publications)
For a malaria elimination strategy, Haiti's National Malaria Control Program piloted a mass drug administration (MDA) with indoor residual spraying (IRS) in 12 high-transmission areas across five communes [...] round of MDA/IRS on malaria transmission was not found using a standard pre- and post-intervention comparison, it is possible there was blunting of the peak transmission. Seasonal malaria transmission patterns
Geo-epidemiology of malaria incidence in the Vhembe District to guide targeted elimination strategies, South-Africa, 2015-2018: a local resurgence (Publications)
to classify the 474 smoothed malaria incidence curves. Thereafter, validity indices were used to determine the number of malaria incidence patterns. The cumulative malaria incidence of the study area was [...] Findings show also unusual malaria phenomena in Vhembe District that hinder malaria elimination in South Africa. Assessing the factors associated with these unusual malaria phenome would be helpful on [...] results. Therefore, in the process of refining local malaria control and...
Bridging the gap from molecular surveillance to programmatic decisions for malaria control and elimination (Publications)
An increasing number of molecular and genomic assays are available to study malaria parasite populations. However, so far they have played a marginal role in informing policy and programmatic decision-making [...] the origin of imported infections and characterize transmission chains in settings with very low malaria transmission, and using serology to monitor recent and past exposures in low-transmission settings [...] integrate molecular and genomic data into control program decision-making,...
Emulator-based Bayesian optimization for efficient multi-objective calibration of an individual-based model of malaria (Publications)
framework employing Gaussian process or machine learning emulator functions to calibrate a complex malaria transmission simulator. We demonstrate our approach by optimizing over a high-dimensional parameter [...] a portfolio of multiple fitting objectives built from datasets capturing the natural history of malaria transmission and disease progression. Our approach quickly outperforms previous calibrations, yielding