National malaria control programmes aided by modelling software

MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis & Modelling's malaria research group have developed software to aid national malaria control programmes.

The Malaria Tools software uses a model published by Professor Azra Ghani and her malaria research team to look at the impact of different combinations of malaria interventions, including bed nets, spraying of insecticides, mass drug administration and the new RTS,S vaccine, should it be licensed. Malaria Tools’s development also took into account differences in malaria transmission in various African countries, allowing the users to model ‘real-life’ scenarios, specific to their settings. 

“The software uses data on increases in bed net coverage in recent years to capture the current changing transmission intensity” said Dr Jamie Griffin, who programmed the simulation model. “We hope to allow users to form realistic expectations of what could be achieved in their setting, rather than to give precise predictions.”

A 2012 World Health Organisation workshop in The Gambia saw staff from the national malaria control programmes of The Gambia and Senegal spend a half-day practically learning about the software to produce scenarios relevant to their local environments.

The feedback was extremely positive, with one user commenting that “The tool helps with forward thinking to move towards pre-elimination. I loved the practical session on the software, where we went from one scenario to another, recognised our gains and saw the impact of various interventions and value added of combining interventions.” 

In the future, the team hopes to test the software with a wider group of stakeholders including national programmes from other countries, in addition to regional and global public health agencies. Ultimately, Malaria Tools will also be extended to include a wider set of interventions that are currently in development, as well as to provide estimates of the cost-effectiveness and budget requirements of different scenarios.

The Malaria Tools software is available to download from the malaria research group’s website.