The Epidemiology of Filariasis Control
World class parasitesPublished 1 January 2002
Edwin Michael
Citations15
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One such deterministic modelling tool, which describes Culex-mediated bancroftian filariasis transmission, is used to illustrate the vital role that these frameworks can play in the design and evaluation of effective mass chemotherapy programmes for the control of this parasitic disease.
Abstract
The planning and evaluation of parasitic control programmes are complicated by the many interacting epidemiological and programmatic factors that jointly determine infection trends under different control options. By facilitating the integration of these factors, mathematical models of parasite transmission can provide a valuable tool for quantifying the impact of such community-based control measures. Here, one such deterministic modelling tool, which describes Culex-mediated bancroftian filariasis transmission, is used to illustrate the vital role that these frameworks can play in the design and evaluation of effective mass chemotherapy programmes for the control of this parasitic disease. The results show that not only can epidemiological models help resolve the practical questions of the duration and required coverage of various proposed regimens for achieving filariasis control, they can also help assess the impact of uncertainties in key variables and their importance to the predicted results. These applications of parasite transmission models thus highlight not only their usefulness as important decision-making tools for control programming but also their value for suggesting areas requiring further theoretical development and field research.
Keywords
Agricultural and Biological SciencesMedicineEnvironmental Science
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