Malaria Atlas Project
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The Malaria Atlas Project, abbreviated as MAP, is a non-profit academic group led by Professor Peter Gething, Kerry M Stokes Chair in Child Health, at the
Telethon Kids Institute The Telethon Kids Institute is an Australian medical research institute focused on the prevention of paediatric disease and the development of improved treatments to improve the health and wellbeing of children. Telethon Kids has developed a p ...
, Perth, Western Australia. The group is funded by the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), a merging of the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was ...
, with previous funding also coming from the Medical Research Council and the
Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of one of the predecessors of Glaxo ...
. MAP aims to disseminate free, accurate and up-to-date information on
malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...
and associated topics, organised on a geographical basis. The work of MAP falls into three areas: * The estimation of the spatial distribution of malaria prevalence and incidence and related topics such as the spatial distribution of
insecticide treated nets A mosquito net is a type of meshed curtain that is circumferentially draped over a bed or a sleeping area, to offer the sleeper barrier protection against bites and stings from mosquitos, flies, and other pest insects, and thus against the di ...
,
antimalarial drugs Antimalarial medications or simply antimalarials are a type of antiparasitic chemical agent, often natural product, naturally derived, that can be used to treat or to prevent malaria, in the latter case, most often aiming at two susceptible target ...
, mosquito vectors, and human blood disorders * Disseminating data on malaria via the Repository for Open Access Data (ROAD-MAP) project * Providing maps relating to malaria prevalence and related topics for the
World Health Organization (WHO) The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
and other bodies. The MAP team have assembled a unique spatial database on linked information derived from medical intelligence, satellite-derived climate data to constrain the limits of malaria transmission, and the largest ever archive of community-based estimates of parasite prevalence. These data have been assembled and analysed by a team of
geographers A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...
,
statisticians A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...
,
epidemiologists Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidenc ...
,
biologists A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual cell, a multicellular organism, or a community of interacting populations. They usually specialize in a ...
and
public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...
specialists. Furthermore, where these data have been cleared for release, they are available via a data explorer tool on the MAP website.


History

MAP was founded by Bob Snow and Simon Hay in 2005 to fill the niche for the malaria control community at a global scale. Between 2012 and 2015, it was led by Peter Gething, Dave Smith, Catherine Moyes and Simon Hay. The initial focus of MAP centred on predicting the endemicity of ''
Plasmodium falciparum ''Plasmodium falciparum'' is a Unicellular organism, unicellular protozoan parasite of humans, and the deadliest species of ''Plasmodium'' that causes malaria in humans. The parasite is transmitted through the bite of a female ''Anopheles'' mosqu ...
'', the most deadly form of the malaria parasite, due to its global epidemiological significance and its better prospects for elimination and control. Work in 2009 began to map the extent and burden of the relatively neglected ''
Plasmodium vivax ''Plasmodium vivax'' is a protozoal parasite and a human pathogen. This parasite is the most frequent and widely distributed cause of recurring malaria. Although it is less virulent than ''Plasmodium falciparum'', the deadliest of the five huma ...
''. The Repository for Open Access Data from the Malaria Atlas Project (ROAD-MAP) was established by Catherine Moyes, Simon Hay and Bob Snow in 2011. Between 2014 and 2019, it was led by Peter Gething and Mike Thorn.


Academic research


Modelling malaria prevalence

A key aspect of MAP’s work is to use statistical approaches to modelling the prevalence of different forms of
malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...
on a global scale using
Bayesian Thomas Bayes (/beɪz/; c. 1701 – 1761) was an English statistician, philosopher, and Presbyterian minister. Bayesian () refers either to a range of concepts and approaches that relate to statistical methods based on Bayes' theorem, or a follower ...
model-based
geostatistics Geostatistics is a branch of statistics focusing on spatial or spatiotemporal datasets. Developed originally to predict probability distributions of ore grades for mining operations, it is currently applied in diverse disciplines including petro ...
. Various environmental factors are known to affect malaria prevalence. Malaria prevalence is known to vary in a relatively predictable fashion in space and time, and observed malaria prevalence depends heavily on people’s age and intervention coverage. In
spatial epidemiology Spatial epidemiology is a subfield of epidemiology focused on the study of the spatial distribution of health outcomes; it is closely related to health geography. Specifically, spatial epidemiology is concerned with the description and examinatio ...
, it is common to find that very few measurements have been taken in large parts of the geographical region of interest. The available measurements may be error-prone or incompletely reported, and almost always it is a subset of the local population that has been surveyed. Since 2005, MAP has collated an extensive database of survey data from a variety of sources. These surveys are typically clustered at village level and record data on parasite positivity rates, usually determined by rapid diagnostic blood tests. Additionally, MAP has gathered extensive data on covariates such as temperature suitability and land cover. These factors affect the distribution of the mosquito vectors responsible for spreading malaria. The benefit of using Bayesian model-based geostatistics is that it conveys the spatially varying level of uncertainty associated with the mapped surface. The probability that any of the very many individual (candidate) maps is the single correct map is small, so it is not useful to report the single most likely map. Taken together, however, the candidate maps make it possible to compute the probability of correctness of statements about the map, such as ''
Plasmodium falciparum ''Plasmodium falciparum'' is a Unicellular organism, unicellular protozoan parasite of humans, and the deadliest species of ''Plasmodium'' that causes malaria in humans. The parasite is transmitted through the bite of a female ''Anopheles'' mosqu ...
'' endemicity at location x in 2010 was between 0.1 and 0.3".


''Plasmodium falciparum'' prevalence maps

Since the year 2000, a concerted campaign against malaria has led to unprecedented levels of intervention coverage across
sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...
. Future control planning depends on understanding the effect of this effort. However, the effect of malaria interventions across the varied epidemiological settings of Africa remains poorly understood owing to the absence of reliable surveillance data and the simplistic approaches underlying current disease estimates. In September 2015, research by MAP published in ''
Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...
'' quantified the attributable effect of malaria disease control efforts in Africa. The results showed ''
Plasmodium falciparum ''Plasmodium falciparum'' is a Unicellular organism, unicellular protozoan parasite of humans, and the deadliest species of ''Plasmodium'' that causes malaria in humans. The parasite is transmitted through the bite of a female ''Anopheles'' mosqu ...
'' infection prevalence in endemic Africa halved and the incidence of clinical disease fell by 40% between 2000 and 2015. The best estimate is that interventions have averted 663 million clinical cases since 2000. Insecticide-treated nets, the most widespread intervention, were by far the largest contributor. Although still below target levels, current malaria interventions have substantially reduced malaria disease incidence across the continent.


''Plasmodium vivax'' prevalence maps

In 2012, MAP published the first global maps for ''
Plasmodium vivax ''Plasmodium vivax'' is a protozoal parasite and a human pathogen. This parasite is the most frequent and widely distributed cause of recurring malaria. Although it is less virulent than ''Plasmodium falciparum'', the deadliest of the five huma ...
'' endemicity.


Data collection, curation, and dissemination


WHO World Malaria Reports

The MAP team works in collaboration with the
World Health Organization (WHO) The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
to provide the prevalence estimates for sub-Saharan African countries for the annual World Malaria Report. Additionally, MAP aids the WHO in production of the annual prevalence rates maps in the World Malaria Report.


Ongoing data curation

The MAP database is the biggest source of processed malariometric data available. By April 2015, the MAP database contained: * 40,000 geo-referenced cluster locations’ parasite rate survey records from 2,010 sources * The database contains approximately 50,000 Annual Parasite Incidence (hereafter API) records for the years 2002 – 2010. MAP actively seeks out and curates a wide variety of additional data from different sources, including the following: * Malaria intervention coverage indicator data * Parasite rate data * Annual Parasite Incidence data * Treatment-seeking data * Satellite data to provide covariate raster surfaces * Blood disorder data * Mosquito bionomics and distribution data MAP is committed to the free and open dissemination of this data (where permission has been granted by the data owner to release it). Dissemination of data is facilitated via the main MAP webpage and the Explorer tool. The latter allows users to download tabular data on malaria by countries.


See also

* Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy * The AfriPop Project


References


External links


Malaria Atlas Project
— Official website {{Malaria Malaria organizations Health charities in the United Kingdom