Infectious disease and health systems modelling for local decision making to control neglected tropical diseases

Abstract

Most neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) have complex life cycles and are challenging to control. The “2020 goals” of control and elimination as a public health programme for a number of NTDs are the subject of significant international efforts and investments. Beyond 2020 there will be a drive to maintain these gains and to push for true local elimination of transmission. However, these diseases are affected by variations in vectors, human demography, access to water and sanitation, access to interventions and local health systems. We therefore argue that there will be a need to develop local quantitative expertise to support elimination efforts. If available now, quantitative analyses would provide updated estimates of the burden of disease, assist in the design of locally appropriate control programmes, estimate the effectiveness of current interventions and support ‘real-time’ updates to local operations. Such quantitative tools are increasingly available at an international scale for NTDs, but are rarely tailored to local scenarios. Localised expertise not only provides an opportunity for more relevant analyses, but also has a greater chance of developing positive feedback between data collection and analysis by demonstrating the value of data. This is essential as rational program design relies on good quality data collection. It is also likely that if such infrastructure is provided for NTDs there will be an additional impact on the health system more broadly. Locally tailored quantitative analyses can help achieve sustainable and effective control of NTDs, but also underpin the development of local health care systems.

Parasites and wildlife in a changing world: The vector-host- pathogen interaction as a learning case

“…Vector borne diseases are particularly sensitive to anthropogenic changes and their transmission is a complex non-linear process, which poses several challenges (Hollingsworth et al., 2015). Proper hazard dynamics would require the precise knowledge of all the processes occurring at the various level of complexity, from pathogen genomics to ecosystem.…”

Making Transmission Models Accessible to End-Users: The Example of TRANSFIL

“…However, whilst the technologies for such interfaces have been around for many years, there are remarkably few examples of such interfaces available to researchers [ 2 ]. There has been an increased practice of releasing model code so that other experienced modellers can use it, as highlighted by the neglected tropical disease (NTD) modelling consortium papers in 2015 [ 3 ]. Developing more user-friendly interfaces to complex transmission models faces several challenges [ 4 ]:…”

Assessment of surveillance core and support functions regarding neglected tropical diseases in Kenya

“…In addition, NTD endemic regions face variations in local health systems performance among other factors. This poses a foreseeable challenge to maintaining NTDs elimination goals beyond 2020 especially in ascertaining local elimination of disease transmission [15].…”