The Malaria Atlas Project brings together a global network of researchers to assemble global databases that can help to address critical questions surrounding malaria epidemiology and control. The Biomedical Resource project is a joint collaborative project between the Vector department of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, the Malaria Atlas Project and the Big Data Institute at the University of Oxford.
The latest ongoing work between LSTM and MAP has produced a global insecticide resistance database, containing more than 14,000 data points. Insecticide resistance maps have been produced to inform vector control strategies and more recently geo-spatial models have been fitted to identify variations in patterns of resistance and develop predictive insecticide resistance models.
Objectives:
- Define geographical distributions of malaria vector sibling species in Africa
- Characterise spatiotemporal variation in resistance
- Use these patterns and the coverage of potential drivers of selection for resistance to develop the capacity to understand and predict resistance patterns throughout Africa and guide the development of monitoring strategies.
- Investigate associations with the potential drivers of selection and the trends in malaria transmission and model covariation of insecticide resistance phenotypes.
Project Activities
Resistance data has been obtained from susceptibility bioassay results extracted from published articles and unpublished datasets provided by key groups and a database of over 14,000 georeferenced, time-stamped, model-ready bioassay records has been obtained. More than 7,000 of these records provide data on resistance to the most commonly used insecticide class, the pyrethroids. The database includes over 10,000 records from Africa and over 3,000 of these are linked to individual sibling species.
Project Outputs
The project has evolved, which is reflected in our output. To date, this project has provided the best available estimates of resistance across regions to fill in gaps in the field data and developed the most accurate and robust global insecticide resistance database for malaria vectors in Africa that is currently available.
‘Geographical distributions of African malaria vector sibling species and evidence for insecticide resistance’ (https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-017-1734-y)
‘Developing global maps of insecticide resistance risk to improve vector control’ (https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-017-1733-z)
Next steps
The latest application of this global insecticide resistance data is to draw associated patterns of insecticide resistance, by applying models to quantify patterns in resistance phenotypes across different insecticides.
The release of this database for public download contributes to tackling the growing need for data sharing and will be the largest available insecticide resistance database of its kind.
Looking ahead, we are now exploring the role of pesticide use as a driver of insecticide resistance by extracting published environmental pesticide residue data.
Funders
The Biomedical resource project is funded by the Wellcome Trust and was established to maintain resources or technology for the benefit of the wider scientific community.