Mapping Hotspots for Mosquito-Human Malaria Transmission

Helder Nakaya of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil will identify hotspots of malaria transmission using the GPS data from mobile phones of infected individuals in order to find asymptomatic cases and help elimination efforts. Malaria is a major public health concern in many countries including Brazil. Eliminating the disease is difficult due in part to the existence of asymptomatic individuals who can still spread the disease but are difficult to detect. Relying on a patient remembering where they have been to identify asymptomatic individuals has not been adequate. Instead, they will test their online tool, which can extract the location history of an individual that has been recorded on their mobile phone, using patients with malaria in a reference hospital in Manaus, Brazil. The tool will be used to identify potential hotspots of transmission, which will be verified by taking blood samples from residents to identify those elusive asymptomatic patients. They will also develop an application for health care workers that displays the hotspots on a map.