Last Updated: 02/05/2025
Assessing the role of global environmental change on malaria elimination and resurgence in South America
Objectives
In an integrated approach that considers multiple components of global environmental change, this study will use powerful Bayesian statistical models to investigate the impact of climate and land use changes, interventions and socioeconomic factors on malaria risk in South America.
The specific objectives are to:
- understand the risk of malaria resurgence, using exploratory models, in a border region of southern Ecuador that, until recently, had eliminated malaria;
- investigate the interaction between environmental factors and socioeconomic pressures in driving rapid resurgence in a malaria hotspot in Venezuela, which is undergoing intensive deforestation and socio-political change; and
- characterize responses of malaria vectors to anthropogenic environmental change in South America in a meta-analysis and develop a regional model framework to understand the synchrony of malaria epidemics and the threat of resurgence.
Malaria is a vector-borne disease of significant global public health concern, which despite ongoing elimination efforts is resurging in areas of the world that had previously suppressed transmission. Resurgence in South America has been attributed to the political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, which is causing spillover of cases to neighbouring countries. Environmental change, including climate and land use modifications, have been implicated in driving malaria transmission, especially in the Amazon region which is undergoing widespread ecological changes as a result of development policies that promote deforestation.
Although much research has focused on identifying the predominant drivers of malaria incidence in South America, less attention has been directed towards understanding how environmental change impacts the risk of resurgence and elimination efforts. This is a crucial knowledge gap that needs to be addressed to tackle the current increasing malaria trends and assess future risk.
These findings of this study will be important in understanding future malaria risk under different environmental change scenarios, as well as informing malaria elimination efforts in the region.
Sep 2017 — Dec 2021
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