Predicting the public health impact of a malaria transmission-blocking vaccine.

ABSTRACT: Transmission-blocking vaccines that interrupt malaria transmission from humans to mosquitoes are being tested in early clinical trials. The activity of such a vaccine is commonly evaluated using membrane-feeding assays. Understanding the field efficacy of such a vaccine requires knowledge of how heavily infected wild, naturally blood-fed mosquitoes are, as this indicates how difficult it will be to block transmission. Here we use data on naturally infected mosquitoes collected in Burkina Faso to translate the laboratory-estimated activity into an estimated activity in the field. A transmission dynamics model is then utilised to predict a transmission-blocking vaccine's public health impact alongside existing interventions. The model suggests that school-aged children are an attractive popu

SUBMITTER: Challenger JD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7940395 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature