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Comment
. 2018 Dec 4;16(1):226.
doi: 10.1186/s12916-018-1224-2.

Spatiotemporal analysis of malaria for new sustainable control strategies

Jordi Landier  1 , Stanislas Rebaudet  2   3 , Renaud Piarroux  4 , Jean Gaudart  5
Affiliations
Comment

Spatiotemporal analysis of malaria for new sustainable control strategies

Jordi Landier et al. BMC Med. .

Abstract

Malaria transmission is highly heterogeneous through time and space, and mapping of this heterogeneity is necessary to better understand local dynamics. New targeted policies are needed as numerous countries have placed malaria elimination on their public health agenda for 2030. In this context, developing national health information systems and collecting information at sufficiently precise scales (at least at the 'week' and 'village' scales), is of strategic importance. In a recent study, Macharia et al. relied on extensive prevalence survey data to develop malaria risk maps for Kenya, including uncertainty assessments specifically designed to support decision-making by the National Malaria Control Program. Targeting local persistent transmission or epidemiologic changes is necessary to maintain efficient control, but also to deploy sustainable elimination strategies against identified transmission bottlenecks such as the reservoir of subpatent infections. Such decision-making tools are paramount to allocate resources based on sound scientific evidence and public health priorities.Please see related article: https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-018-2489-9 .

Keywords: Epidemiological Information System; Sustainable malaria control; bottleneck strategies; malaria reservoir; spatiotemporal analysis.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Comment on

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