Integrated World-Wide Modeling for Malaria Elimination

On 17 October 2007, the Gates Foundation made malaria eradication a goal.  However, malaria eradication will be impossible with the present vector control interventions as malaria is transmitted by hundreds of vectors whose different behaviors limit their effectiveness in different areas.

The Vector Ecology and Control Network (VECNet) project was established to facilitate the development of new vector control tools by assembling all malaria data on vectors, epidemiology, interventions, demography and climate from malaria endemic areas and to make this data available to an integrated modeling platform to allow the analysis of transmission risk as a function of vector ecology and behavior on a spatially and temporally explicit scale.  Such analyses will investigate the composition of tools needed to achieve malaria eradication globally by providing input about the potential impact of the presently available control strategies as well as candidate new tools.

Specifically, the network will achieve three goals:

1. Establishment of a Digital Library of malaria-specific data,

2. Establishment of an Integrated Modeling Platform to analyze those data, and

3. Analyses of data to estimate the potential impact of vector control tools

The Vector Ecology and Control Network’s modeling platform will access real data to allow the refinement, targeting and optimal deployment of the most effective combinations of interventions in a spatially explicit way to target vector behavior vulnerabilities by area.