Malaria is highly sensitive to climatic conditions, and there’s a growing concern that climate change in Africa may exacerbate malaria epidemic and threaten smallholder farmers’ livelihoods. Henri Tonnang at CIMMYT and his colleagues at the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) published a new study, Spatial panorama of malaria prevalence in Africa under climate change and interventions scenarios, using the high-resolution climate projection data from CGIAR’s CCAFS (Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security) Database and the dynamic mathematical network model to comparatively map the current and potential malaria transmission under climate change scenarios, with and without intervention measures.
The study reports that if the rate of interventions continues, a considerable reduction of malaria transmission is likely to happen by the year 2050 in Africa. However, review of recent malaria trend data showed the progress is country-specific. In Cameroon, for example, authors found only a little decline in the prevalence of malaria in recent years, while Kenya showed up to 70% decline in malaria morbidity. The study acknowledged that the existence of diverse malaria environments in Africa, each requiring focal intervention packages to achieve success in disease control.
Kakmeni, F. M. M., Guimapi, R. Y., Ndjomatchoua, F. T., Pedro, S. A., Mutunga, J., & Tonnang, H. E. (2018). Spatial panorama of malaria prevalence in Africa under climate change and interventions scenarios. International journal of health geographics, 17(1), 2.
Full text of the paper is available at the journal website at https://ij-healthgeographics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12942-018-0122-3 (Open Access)
CGIAR-CSI 