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Research to eliminate one of the world’s deadliest diseases – malaria – will be accelerated thanks to a USD $4.7 million grant from the Gates Foundation for scientists at The Kids Research Institute Australia and The University of Western Australia (UWA).
The Malaria Atlas Project (MAP) – which houses the world’s largest malaria database and is at the forefront of efforts to track and tackle the disease – has been awarded more than $16 million by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Disruptions of malaria case management caused by the COVID-19 pandemic likely contributed to an extra 76,000 malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, according to analysis by The Kids Research Institute Australia and Curtin University.
A world-leading research team built to tackle malaria has relocated from Oxford University to Western Australia to take advantage of the state’s growing big data talent pool.
Human mobility is a driver for the reemergence or resurgence of malaria and has been identified as a source of cross-border transmission. However, movement patterns are difficult to measure in rural areas where malaria risk is high. In countries with malaria elimination goals, it is essential to determine the role of mobility on malaria transmission to implement appropriate interventions.
Since 2004, malaria transmission on Bioko Island has declined significantly as a result of the scaling-up of control interventions. The aim of eliminating malaria from the Island remains elusive, however, underscoring the need to adapt control to the local context. Understanding the factors driving the risk of malaria infection is critical to inform optimal suits of interventions in this adaptive approach.
Vector mosquito biting intensity is an important measure to understand malaria transmission. Human landing catch (HLC) is an effective but labour-intensive, expensive, and potentially hazardous entomological surveillance tool. The Centres for Disease Control light trap (CDC-LT) and the human decoy trap (HDT) are exposure-free alternatives.
Geostatistical analysis of health data is increasingly used to model spatial variation in malaria prevalence, burden, and other metrics. Traditional inference methods for geostatistical modelling are notoriously computationally intensive, motivating the development of newer, approximate methods for geostatistical analysis or, more broadly, computational modelling of spatial processes.
Despite significant decline in the past two decades, malaria is still a major public health concern in Tanzania; with over 93% of the population still at risk. Community knowledge, attitudes and practices, and beliefs are key in enhancing uptake and utilization of malaria control interventions, but there is a lack of information on their contribution to effective control of the disease.
In 2022, the World Health Organization extended their guidelines for perennial malaria chemoprevention (PMC) from infants to children up to 24 months old. However, evidence for PMC's public health impact is primarily limited to children under 15 months. Further research is needed to assess the public health impact and cost-effectiveness of PMC, and the added benefit of further age-expansion. We integrated an individual-based model of malaria with pharmacological models of drug action to address these questions for PMC and a proposed age-expanded schedule (referred as PMC+, for children 03-36 months).