On the road towards elimination of malaria in South America

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the world has seen a 37 per cent decrease in malaria incidence over the last 15 years. However, the disease still imposes a significant economic and health burden in regions where it is endemic.

GBIF-mediated data resources used : 2,500 species occurrences (estimate)
Illustrations of the life cycles of the parasites that cause malaria

Illustrations of the life cycles of the parasites that cause malaria. Photo courtesy of Wellcome Library, London, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the world has seen a 37 per cent decrease in malaria incidence over the last 15 years. However, the disease still imposes a significant economic and health burden in regions where it is endemic. In 2013, South America had 427,000 confirmed cases and 82 deaths. This study uses a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to produce risk maps of malaria in the northern part of South America. The authors validate the risk maps using GBIF-mediated occurrences of three vector species (Anopheles darling, An. Albimanus and An. nuneztovari), and compared to previous studies, the maps give a continuous risk surface with high spatial detail and clearly defined gradients. The maps can be particularly useful for guiding targeted malaria interventions and potentially speeding up the process of eliminating malaria completely in South America.

Alimi TO, Fuller DO, Herrera SV, Arevalo-Herrera M, Quinones ML, Stoler JB and Beier JC (2016) A multi-criteria decision analysis approach to assessing malaria risk in northern South America. BMC Public Health. Springer Nature. Available at doi:10.1186/s12889-016-2902-7.