Development of the human component in the Open Malaria Warning (OMaWa) model

Project facts

Project promoter:
Complutense University of Madrid
Project Number:
ES07-0109
Target groups
Researchers or scientists
Status:
Completed
Initial project cost:
€6,160
Final project cost:
€5,854
From EEA Grants:
€ 5,854
The project is carried out in:
Spain

More information

Description

Malaria is a major health problem in Africa. In lack of an effective vaccine, prevention becomes a crucial point to control Malaria. It is caused by five different Plasmodium parasites which depend on two hosts, mainly humans or cattle, and mosquitoes. Mosquito control is an obvious method to decrease Malaria spreading. To achieve this, better understanding of mosquito population dynamics is needed. The main aim of the project is to further develop the Open Malaria Warning (OMaWa) model and computer program by including the simulation of the human component. This involves modeling the transmission dynamics in the human and coupling it to the currently running mosquito model. The approach focused on mathematical modeling to adequately describe the density of mosquitoes and identify the main mechanism controlling the number of mosquitoes on continental scales. Although the mosquito component model could be revised, higher impact in the global Malaria model improvement can be achieved by properly modeling the human component. Beneficiaries of the project include the institutions involved in the project and the scientific community. The Malaria Research Group at the University of Bergen, donor partner, has been working on the effects of climate warming in malaria since 2007 as part of the Ethiopian Malaria Prediction System, a project that involves scientists from Ethiopia and Norway. Project promoter, Complutense University of Madrid, has a deep expertise in statistical physicist on modeling very different systems, with a background on stochastic methods.

Summary of project results

Malaria is a major health problem in Africa. In lack of an effective vaccine, prevention becomes a crucial point to control Malaria. It is caused by five different Plasmodium parasites which depend on two hosts, mainly humans or cattle, and mosquitoes. Mosquito control is an obvious method to decrease Malaria spreading. To achieve this, better understanding of mosquito population dynamics is needed. In past years, the group of Prof. Bernt Lindtjørn has been involved in the development of the Open Malaria model (OMaWa) and the assessment of the influence of weather and climate change on global malaria in Africa. The approach focused on mathematical modeling to adequately describe the density of mosquitoes and identify the main mechanism controlling the number of mosquitoes on continental scales. Although the mosquito component model could be revised, higher impact in the global malaria model improvement can be achieved by properly modeling the human component. This was the principal objective of this project. As a result of the stay, a first version of a fullfledge malaria model with human component, based on the previous OMaWa mosquito model has been developed. The results of the project are still preliminary but nevertheless clearly show that a direct prediction of malaria infection can be obtained as opposed to the original model where it had to be inferred from mosquito numbers. There are however many aspects of the model which need to be modified in the future in order to get predictions that are quantitatively correct. Results are still on a very early stage to grant publication. Further refinements are needed in the model and a quantitative comparison to real data is lacking. Nevertheless, notes on the different aspects of the model and simulations have already been written down and will be useful as a first draft for a publication in the future. The partnership has been fruitful for both parties. On the one hand, the grantee had the opportunity to get involved in an ongoing malaria research project at an institution with more than 25 years of experience in developing countries health related research. The expertise of the group, their connections to Ethiopian malaria field research and their facilities make it the perfect group to collaborate with in order to start a successful research carrier on malaria modeling.

Summary of bilateral results

During the development of the project the grantee directly interacted with Dr. Torleif Lunde who originally developed OMaWa model during his PhD. Thesis (Lunde, 2013) . This collaboration has been crucial to get acquainted with the original version of the model, which is already very elaborate both from the scientific and computing perspective. Although the scientific aspects are well documented in publications and thesis manuscript, the computational details are not described in these sources. Dr. Lunde generously provided the software and data needed to run the mosquito model and discussed with us the most relevant aspects. Malaria medical aspects, including distribution in Ethiopia, transmission aspects, existent experiments, interventions, etc... were discussed with Prof. Lindtjørn, who was responsible researcher from the host institution. Further development of the model will continue now from Universidad Complutense. Before departure from University of Bergen, partners delineated the areas where the model should be developed, such as: population growth; Waning immunity; Interventions; Time dependent biting rate or Population movement. Interaction will be carried in the near future via online or telephonic communication, with occasional visits if funding and teaching duties permit.