Malaria Atlas Project: Developing Global Maps of Malaria Risk

Published in Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine, this 5-page article describes an initiative through which researchers have created a global, online map of communities at high risk of malaria to help policymakers allocate public health resources based on evidence-based quantification of need. Launched on May 1 2006, the website associated with the ongoing Malaria Atlas Project (MAP) allows users to visualise the current distribution of contemporary parasite rate (PR) data through static maps in Web browsers, or - more interactively - through files that enable the data to be displayed in the form of satellite photographs on Google Earth. This approach to understanding malaria draws on new information and communication technologies (ICTs) to share precise data collected by population surveys, enabling scientists to estimate the risk for regions lacking records - toward better design of malaria control initiatives and efforts to measure their impact.

The maps will help identify areas of drug resistance, species of mosquitoes present, and areas where outbreaks are imminent. Researchers note that, "While we strive to assemble data to define an endemicity baseline, the static maps we generate will represent a 'snapshot' of a dynamic malaria epidemiology." MAP operates with strict inclusion criteria for PR data; details of these and additional inclusion rules are provided online in English, Spanish, French, Chinese, and Swahili. To facilitate communication, researchers have translated the entire map website into Spanish and French.

Principles of open access shape MAP's efforts. The goal is to openly share data collected and techniques from the outset; those supplying useful PR data are provided with the full database for their country of interest (provided that permission is granted from the data owners; the website allows formal acknowledgment of those who contribute/own data). In addition, the entire database will be released in the public domain immediately following a peer review process - on or around June 1 2009.

Cooperation among members of the malaria control community is thought to be key to this collaborative process. The researchers are interested in gathering additional data about malaria infections from the public health community. They also call on international health organisations, spearheaded by the World Health Organization (WHO), to advise governments - especially in Africa - on how the mapping system can be used to facilitate malaria control.

Editor's note: As reported in a related article on SciDev.Net, the initiative summarised above coincides with United Nations (UN) health agency launch of the Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap on December 4 2006. This is a global effort to develop and license a vaccine by 2015 that provides 50% efficacy against the disease, and a vaccine with 80% efficacy by 2025. From the Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap website: "The Roadmap is based on the results of a series of five meetings held in 2004 and 2005...and a 2006 synthesis process through which key experts carefully reviewed the collective input of the malaria vaccine community. More than 230 experts representing 100 organizations from 35 countries have participated in the process. The resulting Roadmap presents a shared vision and goal and identifies the community's top priorities for accelerating malaria vaccine development."