Spatial and temporal dynamics of malaria transmission in residual hotspots in the Brazilian Amazon

• Grant number: 18/03902-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Effective date (Start): June 01, 2018
• Effective date (End): April 30, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Parasitology - Protozoology of Parasites
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Urbano Ferreira
• Grantee: Priscila Thihara Rodrigues
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 16/18740-9 - Scientific bases for residual malaria elimination in the Brazilian Amazon, AP.TEM

Abstract

With 143,910 laboratory-confirmed cases and 41 malaria-related deaths in 2014, Brazil has launched, in November 2015, the Malaria Elimination Plan, with the short-term goal of interrupting Plasmodium falciparum transmission countrywide over the next 15 years. The focal nature of malaria transmission in Brazil suggests that elimination efforts will require a careful prioritization of a few residual malaria pockets. Here we combine classical epidemiological approaches, to characterize risk factors and intervention targets, with population genetics/genomics analyses of parasites, with the ultimate goal of improving current strategies for malaria control and elimination in Brazil. Our field-based studies in the main endemic area of Brazil (Juruá Valley, close to the border with Peru, which accounts for 20% of all infections in this country), focus on asymptomatic infections with low-level parasitemias that create a large and undetected reservoir of infection.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

FONTOURA, PABLO S.; SILVA, MARCOS F.; DA COSTA, ANDERSON S.; RIBEIRO, FRANCISMAR S.; FERREIRA, MARCILIO S.; LADEIA-ANDRADE, SIMONE; TONINI, JULIANA; RODRIGUES, PRISCILA T.; CASTRO, MARCIA C.; FERREIRA, MARCELO U.. Monthly biological larviciding associated with a tenfold decrease in larval density in fish farming ponds and reduced community-wide malaria incidence in northwestern Brazil. PARASITES & VECTORS, v. 14, n. 1, SEP 3 2021. (16/18740-9, 18/03902-9, 16/25617-9)

JOHANSEN, IGOR C.; RODRIGUES, PRISCILA T.; FERREIRA, MARCELO U.. Human mobility and urban malaria risk in the main transmission hotspot of Amazonian Brazil. PLoS One, v. 15, n. 11, NOV 25 2020. (18/03902-9, 16/18740-9)