Mobile phone data can help combat malaria

Mobile phone data can help combat malaria more effectively, according to a new study carried in Namibia.
By combining this data with information about diagnosed cases of malaria, topography and climate, the researchers have been able to identify geographical 'hotspots' of the disease and design targeted plans for its elimination.
An international study led by the University of Southampton and the National Vector-borne Diseases Control Programme (NVDCP) in Namibia used mobile phone data to help combat malaria more effectively.
The study used anonymised mobile records to measure population movements within Namibia in Africa over the period of one year.
"Understanding the movement of people is crucial in eliminating malaria. Attempts to clear the disease from an area can be ruined by highly mobile populations quickly reintroducing the parasite which causes malaria," Geographer at the University of Southampton Dr Andy Tatem said.

"If we are to eliminate this disease, we need to deploy the right measures in the right place, but figures on human movement patterns in endemic regions are hard to come by and often restricted to local travel surveys and census-based migration data.

"Our study demonstrates that the rapid global proliferation of mobile phones now provides us with an opportunity to study the movement of people, using sample sizes running in to millions. This data, combined with disease case based mapping, can help us plan where and how to intervene," said Tatem.
Twelve months of anonymised Call Data Records (CDRs) represented nine billion communications from 1.19 million unique subscribers, around 52 per cent of the population of Namibia.

The results of the study help the NVDCP in Namibia improve their targeting of malaria interventions to communities most at risk.
Specifically they have helped with the targeting of insecticide-treated bed net distributions in the Omusati, Kavango and Zambezi regions in 2013.
"The importation of malaria from outside a country will always be a crucial focus of disease control programmes, but movement of the disease within countries is also of huge significance. Understanding the human element of this movement should be a critical component when designing elimination strategies - to help target resources most efficiently," Tatem said.
"The use of mobile phone data is one example of how new technologies are overcoming past problems of quantifying and gaining a better understanding of human movement patterns in relation to disease control," said Tatem.

The research was published in the Malaria Journal.