KEMRI Wellcome Trust reveals largest repository of malaria survey data in Africa

Researchers at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust have revealed the largest repository of malaria survey data in Africa, covering over 50,000 surveys across 115 years starting in 1900, each documented by date, geolocation, number of people, and the proportion positive for Plasmodium falciparum infection. This is the largest repository of any parasitic disease in the world.

The researchers analysed the data to estimate malaria infection prevalence for each of 520 administrative units of sub-Saharan African Countries and Madagascar for 16 time periods since 1900 through to 2010-2015. The paper is available online in Nature.

The research was led by Professor Bob Snow and Abdisalan Noor of the Kenya Medical Research Institute-Wellcome Trust Programme and University of Oxford.