Plasmodium falciparum malaria importation from Africa to China and its mortality: an analysis of driving factors

Plasmodium falciparum malaria importation from Africa to China is rising with increasing Chinese overseas investment and international travel. Identifying networks and drivers of this phenomenon as well as the contributors to high case-fatality rate is a growing public health concern to enable efficient response. From 2011–2015, 8653?P. falciparum cases leading to 98 deaths (11.3 per 1000 cases) were imported from 41 sub-Saharan countries into China, with most cases (91.3%) occurring in labour-related Chinese travellers. Four strongly connected groupings of origin African countries with destination Chinese provinces were identified, and the number of imported cases was significantly associated with the volume of air passengers to China (P?=?0.006), parasite prevalence in Africa (P?<?0.001), and the amount of official development assistance from China (P?<?0.001) with investment in resource extraction having the strongest relationship with parasite importation. Risk factors for deaths from imported cases were related to the capacity of malaria diagnosis and diverse socioeconomic factors. The spatial heterogeneity uncovered, principal drivers explored, and risk factors for mortality found in the rising rates of P. falciparum malaria importation to China can serve to refine malaria elimination strategies and the management of cases, and high risk groups and regions should be targeted

Desarrollo, subjetividad y transgresiones identitarias en las costas del sur- austral chileno

This work is part of an investigation into the contemporary dynamics of development and modernization in the southern and far southern coastal areas of Chile, specifically the shoreline of the northern part of the Aysen Region. The objective is to propose a theoretical-conceptual reflection to enable ethnographic data to be framed as a problem and interpreted as a function of a political reading which - why not say so? - could transform the world of the southern and far southern coastal zone. The central argument of the text is hypothetical: the dilemmas of development, in the current circumstances of the coasts of the Aysen Region, are susceptible of resolution (at least up to a point) from a conscious, reflexive change of perspective on culture as the word is understood in anthropology. Este trabajo se enmarca en una investigación sobre las dinámicas contemporáneas del desarrollo y la modernización en las costas sur-australes de Chile, específicamente en el litoral norte de la región de Aisén. A partir de un conjunto de datos etnográficos se propone una reflexión teórico-conceptual que permita problematizar e interpretar esos datos en función de una lectura política y, por qué no decirlo, transformadora del mundo costero sur-austral. El argumento central del texto tiene carácter hipotético: las encrucijadas del desarrollo, en las actuales coyunturas de las costas aiseninas, son susceptibles de ser resueltas (al menos hasta cierto punto) a partir de un giro reflexivo y consciente sobre eso que en antropología llamamos cultura

Global malaria connectivity through air travel

Air travel has expanded at an unprecedented rate and continues to do so. Its effects have been seen on malaria in rates of imported cases, local outbreaks in non-endemic areas and the global spread of drug resistance. With elimination and global eradication back on the agenda, changing levels and compositions of imported malaria in malaria-free countries, and the threat of artemisinin resistance spreading from Southeast Asia, there is a need to better understand how the modern flow of air passengers connects each Plasmodium falciparum- and Plasmodium vivax-endemic region to the rest of the world. Recently constructed global P. falciparum and P.vivax malaria risk maps, along with data on flight schedules and modelled passenger flows across the air network, were combined to describe and quantify global malaria connectivity through air travel. Network analysis approaches were then utilized to describe and quantify the patterns that exist in passenger flows weighted by malaria prevalence. Finally, the connectivity within and to the Southeast Asia region where the threat of imported artemisinin resistance arising is highest, was examined to highlight risk routes for its spread. The analyses demonstrate the substantial connectivity that now exists between and from malaria-endemic regions through air travel. While the air network provides connections to previously isolated malarious regions, it is clear that great variations exist, with significant regional communities of airports connected by higher rates of flow standing out. The structures of these communities are often not geographically coherent, with historical, economic and cultural ties evident, and variations between P. falciparum and P. vivax clear. Moreover, results highlight how well connected the malaria-endemic areas of Africa are now to Southeast Asia, illustrating the many possible routes that artemisinin-resistant strains could take. The continuing growth in air travel is playing an important role in the global epidemiology of malaria, with the endemic world becoming increasingly connected to both malaria-free areas and other endemic regions. The research presented here provides an initial effort to quantify and analyse the connectivity that exists across the malaria-endemic world through air travel, and provide a basic assessment of the risks it results in for movement of infections

Understanding population displacements on location-based call records using road data

Large population displacements are usually observed after nature disasters. The best approximations to real world population movement in such a short temporal scale are the users' movements patterns derived from the cell phone usage data. However, due to a lot of political, economic and privacy constraints, these sensitive data are not always available. On the other hand, population movements are usually observed on the underlying road network. The correlation between the cell phone users' movement and the road network has yet been examined. The aim of this research is to compare the topological structure and the network metrics of the road network to the cell phone users' movement network in Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire, and to inspect the correlations of movement volume and road connectivity. A flooding scenario was assumed to inspect the responds from both the movement network and road network. Our analysis shows that the cellphone users' movement network and the road network present significant similarities in terms of network partition. Our research also indicates that the road topology could be utilized as a proxy to approximate the population movement volume on above. We present an initial step to help the data-scarce area understand the population movement pattern from more readily-available road network data. Furthermore, our results suggest that traditional evacuation planning should consider the social perspective of population connections and periodical movement

Modeling monthly flows of global air travel passengers: An open-access data resource

The global flow of air travel passengers varies over time and space, but analyses of these dynamics and their integration into applications in the fields of economics, epidemiology and migration, for example, have been constrained by a lack of data, given that air passenger flow data are often difficult and expensive to obtain. Here, these dynamics are modeled at a monthly scale to provide an open-access spatio-temporally resolved data source for research purposes (www.vbd-air.com/data). By refining an annual-scale model o

Modeling monthly flows of global air travel passengers: an open-access data resource

The global flow of air travel passengers varies over time and space, but analyses of these dynamics and their integration into applications in the fields of economics, epidemiology and migration, for example, have been constrained by a lack of data, given that air passenger flow data are often difficult and expensive to obtain. Here, these dynamics are modeled at a monthly scale to provide an open-access spatio-temporally resolved data source for research purposes (www.vbd-air.com/data). By refining an annual-scale model of Huang et al. (2013), we developed a set of Poisson regression models to predict monthly passenger volumes between directly connected airports during 2010. The models not only performed well in the United States with an overall accuracy of 93%, but also showed a reasonable confidence in estimating air passenger volumes in other regions of the world. Using the model outcomes, this research studied the spatio-temporal dynamics in the world airline network (WAN) that previous analyses were unable to capture. Findings on the monthly variation of WAN offer new knowledge for dynamic planning and strategy design to address global issues, such as disease pandemics and climate change