Stratification of malaria incidence in Papua New Guinea (2011–2019): contribution towards a sub-national control policy (Publications)
Malaria risk in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is highly heterogeneous, between and within geographical regions, which is operationally challenging for control. To enhance targeting of malaria interventions in [...] Incidence maps show a contrast in malaria risk between coastal and inland areas influenced by altitude. However, the risk is highly variable in low-lying areas. Malaria interventions should be guided by [...] in PNG, we investigated risk factors and stratified malaria incidence at the level...
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
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....
Infectivity of symptomatic malaria patients to <em>Anopheles farauti</em> colony mosquitoes in Papua New Guinea (Publications)
to mosquitoes is an understudied bottleneck in the transmission of malaria. Direct membrane feeding assays (DMFA) allow detailed malaria transmission studies from humans to mosquitoes. Especially for Plasmodium [...] were performed with venous blood collected from rapid diagnostic test (RDT) positive symptomatic malaria patients and subsequently analysed by light microscopy and quantitative real time polymerase chain
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
Revisiting the effect of pharmaceuticals on transmission stage formation in the malaria parasite <em>Plasmodium falciparum</em> (Publications)
Malaria parasites rely on specialized stages, called gametocytes, to ensure human-to-human transmission. The formation of these sexual precursor cells is initiated by commitment of blood stage parasites [...] vivo. These observations suggest that therapeutic interventions may promote gametocytogenesis and malaria transmission. Here, we engineered a P. falciparum reporter line to quantify sexual commitment rates [...] rates after exposure to antimalarials and other pharmaceuticals commonly...
Multi-insecticide resistant malaria vectors in the field remain susceptible to malathion, despite the presence of <em>Ace1</em> point mutations (Publications)
Insecticide resistance in Anopheles mosquitoes is seriously threatening the success of insecticide-based malaria vector control. Surveillance of insecticide resistance in mosquito populations and identifying the
<em>Plasmodium falciparum</em> parasite prevalence in East Africa: updating data for malaria stratification (Publications)
Burden High Impact (HBHI) strategy for malaria encourages countries to use multiple sources of available data to define the sub-national vulnerabilities to malaria risk, including parasite prevalence. Here [...] to provide a more contemporary understanding of the sub-national malaria prevalence stratification across the sub-region for 2019. Malaria prevalence data from surveys undertaken between January 2010 and
