Scientists in the US develop tool to map spread of malaria

Scientists at the San Francisco State University have developed a system based on complex computer algorithms to predict the prevalence of malaria and future scenarios of the disease in areas where its levels are still unknown.

The researchers have been collecting blood samples from olive sunbird, a tropical rainforest bird found across West Africa, for 20 years.

Malaria is caused by tiny parasites which are transmitted from a mosquito's saliva into the human body, where the parasite, called plasmodium, multiplies within red blood cells.

The researchers collected the blood samples from birds from 28 various sites in West Africa and compared the results against maps of conditions, such as rainfall, temperature and vegetation type, identifying relationships between environmental conditions and malaria infections.

“We can now predict where malaria will show up in Africa," said Ravinder Sehgal, assistant professor of Biology. "We expect our results could apply to malaria in humans too, since mosquitoes are mosquitoes, whether they are biting people or birds."

Studying the birds enabled the scientists to examine the dynamics of the disease, even in remote areas where there are no human inhabitants, and allowed them to analyse the relationship between ecological conditions and malaria without human factors getting in the way.

"We used this data to create computer algorithms that can predict the prevalence of malaria in regions where malaria levels aren't known, or predict when climate change or deforestation might affect the spread of the disease," Sehgal said.

So far, testing has proved the model to be accurate in predicting the avian malaria in Cameroon, Ghana and Ivory Coast, countries where levels of the disease are moderate.

But more work would be needed to refine the model for use in areas where the parasite plasmodium is extremely prevalent.

"We're going to refine the model to work better in the humid Nigerian rainforests where malaria levels are thought to be very high, and also hope to expand the model for use in East and South Africa," Sehgal said.

The research has been published in a research journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B.