Landscape Ecology and Epidemiology of Malaria Associated with Rubber Plantations in Thailand: Integrated Approaches to Malaria Ecotoping

Abstract

The agricultural land use changes that are human-induced changes in agroforestry ecosystems and in physical environmental conditions contribute substantially to the potential risks for malaria transmission in receptive areas. Due to the pattern and extent of land use change, the risks or negatively ecosystemic outcomes are the results of the dynamics of malaria transmission, the susceptibility of human populations, and the geographical distribution of malaria vectors. This review focused basically on what are the potential effects of agricultural land use change as a result of the expansion of rubber plantations in Thailand and how significant the ecotopes of malaria-associated rubber plantations (MRP) are. More profoundly, this review synthesized the novel concepts and perspectives on applied landscape ecology and epidemiology of malaria, as well as approaches to determine the degree to which an MRP ecotope as fundamental landscape scale can establish malaria infection pocket(s). Malaria ecotoping encompasses the integrated approaches and tools applied to or used in modeling malaria transmission. The scalability of MRP ecotope depends upon its unique landscape structure as it is geographically associated with the infestation or reinfestation of Anopheles vectors, along with the attributes that are epidemiologically linked with the infections. The MRP ecotope can be depicted as the hotspot such that malaria transmission is modeled upon the MRP factors underlying human settlements and movement activities, health behaviors, land use/land cover change, malaria vector population dynamics, and agrienvironmental and climatic conditions. The systemic and uniform approaches to malaria ecotoping underpin the stratification of the potential risks for malaria transmission by making use of remotely sensed satellite imagery or landscape aerial photography using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), global positioning systems (GPS), and geographical information systems (GIS).

Natural human Plasmodium infections in major Anopheles mosquitoes in western Thailand

“…annularis s.l. in western Thailand, resulting in increased abundance of this species (>14 %) [ 1 , 15 , 16 ]. The detection of both P. falciparum and P. vivax CS proteins in this species demonstrated its competence in transmitting both parasite species.…”

Comparative assessment on the prevalence of mutations in the Plasmodium falciparum drug-resistant genes in two different ecotypes of Odisha state, India

“…Epidemiological outcome of malaria infection differs in different ecotypes of the globe (Das et al, 2012; Kaewwaen and Bhumiratana, 2015; Kar et al, 2014; Okwa et al, 2009; Sharma, V.P. et al, 2015), and therefore, malaria is considered as a local and focal disease (Conn et al, 2015; Dash et al, 2008; Rath, 2004).…”

Applications of Space Technologies to Global Health: Scoping Review (Preprint)

“…GNSSs have been used often in the field of communicable diseases too, including person-to-person transmissible varieties [253,255], vector-borne diseases [21,48,38,252,258,260,257,264,256,95,263], and zoonoses [262,260,254,261,25]. In our search, the most studied communicable disease was malaria.…”

“…Main themes in the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) domain. ,253,25,254,255,38,48,[256][257][258]95,[259][260][261][262][263][264][265] …”