Project Title: Malaria modeling field strengthening
Project Description: Malaria remains a major public health burden in Africa. If the recent 2021 World Malaria report confirmed the stagnation of the progress in controlling this disease, we are nevertheless entering a new era in the fight against malaria with several new interventions available to tackle the disease including improved vector control tools, effective drugs and a vaccine. To optimize the effectiveness of these control tools, it is vital to ensure that National Malaria Control Programs... Malaria remains a major public health burden in Africa. If the recent 2021 World Malaria report confirmed the stagnation of the progress in controlling this disease, we are nevertheless entering a new era in the fight against malaria with several new interventions available to tackle the disease including improved vector control tools, effective drugs and a vaccine. To optimize the effectiveness of these control tools, it is vital to ensure that National Malaria Control Programs (NMCPs) across Africa are equipped to make rational and evidence-based decisions on suitable control strategies to implement notably through modeling. While mathematical modelling approaches are already being used to understand malaria epidemiology and the impact of drugs and vaccines, little has been done for vector control despite its major role for malaria preventionl. Indeed, vector control tools exhibit a greater diversity (and more so in the future) including current long lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs), synergist LLINs and novel mode of action insecticides for indoor residual spraying (IRS) and LLINs, which must be deployed considering the development of resistance and its impacts on the effectiveness of tools and malaria transmission. Besides these, we row have the prospects of novel paradigm tools such as attractive toxic sugar baits (ATSB) and gene drive2 which could greatly boost control efforts. Moreover, the complexity of mosquito evolution and resistance mechanisms make a compelling case to develop modelling approaches in vector control to better inform NMCPs on the suitable interventions and how to predict/assess their effectiveness. Therefore, to help improve malaria control across Africa, this project aims to train a cohort of African modelers on malaria transmission and evolutionary dynamics, in line with NMCP needs, to help maximize the impact of vector control and reduce malaria burden.
Principal Investigator : Halfan Ngowo
Department Name :
Time frame: (2021-12-21) - (2025-12-30)
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) (Prime)
Centre for Research in Infectious Diseases (CRID) (Normal)
External Collaborating Partners
None added yet.