Publication Date
2021
Journal or Book Title
eLife
Abstract
As countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) increasingly focus their malaria control and elimination efforts on reducing forest-related transmission, greater understanding of the relationship between deforestation and malaria incidence will be essential for programs to assess and meet their 2030 elimination goals. Leveraging village-level health facility surveillance data and forest cover data in a spatio-temporal modeling framework, we found evidence that deforestation is associated with short-term increases, but long-term decreases confirmed malaria case incidence in Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). We identified strong associations with deforestation measured within 30 km of villages but not with deforestation in the near (10 km) and immediate (1 km) vicinity. Results appear driven by deforestation in densely forested areas and were more pronounced for infections with Plasmodium falciparum (P. falciparum) than for Plasmodium vivax (P. vivax). These findings highlight the influence of forest activities on malaria transmission in the GMS.
ISSN
2050-084X
ORCID
Rerolle, Francois/0000-0002-3837-5700; Lover, Andrew/0000-0002-2181-3559
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.56974
Volume
10
License
UMass Amherst Open Access Policy
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Funder
Bill and Melinda Gates FoundationBill & Melinda Gates Foundation [OPP1116450]
Recommended Citation
Rerolle, Francois; Dantzer, Emily; Lover, Andrew A.; Marshall, John M.; Hongvanthong, Bouasy; Sturrock, Hugh J. W.; and Bennett, Adam, "Spatio-Temporal Associations Between Deforestation and Malaria Incidence in Lao PDR" (2021). Biostatistics and Epidemiology Faculty Publications Series.
10
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.56974