The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

The geography of imported malaria to non-endemic countries: a meta-analysis of nationally reported statistics

The geography of imported malaria to non-endemic countries: a meta-analysis of nationally reported statistics
The geography of imported malaria to non-endemic countries: a meta-analysis of nationally reported statistics
Background

Malaria remains a problem for many countries classified as malaria free through cases imported from endemic regions. Imported cases to non-endemic countries often result in delays in diagnosis, are expensive to treat, and can sometimes cause secondary local transmission. The movement of malaria in endemic countries has also contributed to the spread of drug resistance and threatens long-term eradication goals. Here we focused on quantifying the international movements of malaria to improve our understanding of these phenomena and facilitate the design of mitigation strategies.

Methods

In this meta-analysis, we studied the database of publicly available nationally reported statistics on imported malaria in the past 10 years, covering more than 50?000 individual cases. We obtained data from 40 non-endemic countries and recorded the geographical variations.

Findings

Infection movements were strongly skewed towards a small number of high-traffic routes between 2005 and 2015, with the west Africa region accounting for 56% (13?947/24?941) of all imported cases to non-endemic countries with a reported travel destination, and France and the UK receiving the highest number of cases, with more than 4000 reported cases per year on average. Countries strongly linked by movements of imported cases are grouped by historical, language, and travel ties. There is strong spatial clustering of plasmodium species types.

Interpretation

The architecture of the air network, historical ties, demographics of travellers, and malaria endemicity contribute to highly heterogeneous patterns of numbers, routes, and species compositions of parasites transported. With global malaria eradication on the international agenda, malaria control altering local transmission, and the threat of drug resistance, understanding these patterns and their drivers is increasing in importance.
1473-3099
98-107
Tatem, Andrew J.
6c6de104-a5f9-46e0-bb93-a1a7c980513e
Jia, Peng
dbe85528-4e0b-47c5-aa2e-189cda38d131
Ordanovich, Dariya
72992778-4912-47a5-9950-d7ece20ad29d
Falkner, Michael
87d8eb67-e911-4978-ac5c-bbd57a11eff5
Huang, Zhuojie
07e288b7-51b3-414a-82b7-28d83b114be6
Howes, Rosalind
782b95f5-0741-491a-8963-a6ba5c77ecb4
Hay, Simon I.
471d3ae4-a3c1-4d29-93e3-a90d44471b00
Gething, Peter W
f8e80d09-acc3-4f5d-a2de-bff551f34760
Smith, David L.
5c918948-ded2-42d8-82c1-a746a4bc3b6e
Tatem, Andrew J.
6c6de104-a5f9-46e0-bb93-a1a7c980513e
Jia, Peng
dbe85528-4e0b-47c5-aa2e-189cda38d131
Ordanovich, Dariya
72992778-4912-47a5-9950-d7ece20ad29d
Falkner, Michael
87d8eb67-e911-4978-ac5c-bbd57a11eff5
Huang, Zhuojie
07e288b7-51b3-414a-82b7-28d83b114be6
Howes, Rosalind
782b95f5-0741-491a-8963-a6ba5c77ecb4
Hay, Simon I.
471d3ae4-a3c1-4d29-93e3-a90d44471b00
Gething, Peter W
f8e80d09-acc3-4f5d-a2de-bff551f34760
Smith, David L.
5c918948-ded2-42d8-82c1-a746a4bc3b6e

Tatem, Andrew J., Jia, Peng, Ordanovich, Dariya, Falkner, Michael, Huang, Zhuojie, Howes, Rosalind, Hay, Simon I., Gething, Peter W and Smith, David L. (2017) The geography of imported malaria to non-endemic countries: a meta-analysis of nationally reported statistics. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 17 (1), 98-107. (doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(16)30326-7). (PMID:27777030)

Record type: Article

Abstract

Background

Malaria remains a problem for many countries classified as malaria free through cases imported from endemic regions. Imported cases to non-endemic countries often result in delays in diagnosis, are expensive to treat, and can sometimes cause secondary local transmission. The movement of malaria in endemic countries has also contributed to the spread of drug resistance and threatens long-term eradication goals. Here we focused on quantifying the international movements of malaria to improve our understanding of these phenomena and facilitate the design of mitigation strategies.

Methods

In this meta-analysis, we studied the database of publicly available nationally reported statistics on imported malaria in the past 10 years, covering more than 50?000 individual cases. We obtained data from 40 non-endemic countries and recorded the geographical variations.

Findings

Infection movements were strongly skewed towards a small number of high-traffic routes between 2005 and 2015, with the west Africa region accounting for 56% (13?947/24?941) of all imported cases to non-endemic countries with a reported travel destination, and France and the UK receiving the highest number of cases, with more than 4000 reported cases per year on average. Countries strongly linked by movements of imported cases are grouped by historical, language, and travel ties. There is strong spatial clustering of plasmodium species types.

Interpretation

The architecture of the air network, historical ties, demographics of travellers, and malaria endemicity contribute to highly heterogeneous patterns of numbers, routes, and species compositions of parasites transported. With global malaria eradication on the international agenda, malaria control altering local transmission, and the threat of drug resistance, understanding these patterns and their drivers is increasing in importance.

Text
1-s2.0-S1473309916303267-main.pdf - Version of Record
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.
Download (3MB)

More information

Accepted/In Press date: 17 August 2016
e-pub ahead of print date: 21 October 2016
Published date: January 2017
Organisations: Global Env Change & Earth Observation, WorldPop, Population, Health & Wellbeing (PHeW)

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 401950
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/401950
ISSN: 1473-3099
PURE UUID: 8d529dd7-23db-4576-b4e5-00482a3e462f
ORCID for Andrew J. Tatem: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-7270-941X

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 25 Oct 2016 13:15
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:43

Export record

Altmetrics

Contributors

Author: Andrew J. Tatem ORCID iD
Author: Peng Jia
Author: Dariya Ordanovich
Author: Michael Falkner
Author: Zhuojie Huang
Author: Rosalind Howes
Author: Simon I. Hay
Author: Peter W Gething
Author: David L. Smith

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×