How does flooding impact malaria risk in Africa? With climate change modifying flood risk, what subsequent effect will this have on malaria control? These are the questions the Malaria Atlas Project was looking to investigate when they approached global flood risk intelligence firm Fathom.
Fathom has been appointed by the Malaria Atlas Project, based at the Kids Research Institute Australia, to provide flood risk data for the entire African continent for the present day and future climate scenarios up to the year 2100.
Using Fathom’s award-winning data, and with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the project is investigating topics such as the impact of flooding on transport infrastructure used to provision medical services to remote communities, disruption to malaria control efforts like mass distribution of insecticidal bed nets, and how future flood risk evolution will influence mosquito breeding-site distribution.
Professor Peter Gething, co-head of the Malaria Atlas Project, said: “Fathom’s consistent, full-coverage view of flood risk is proving indispensable for analyzing malaria transmission in flood prone areas of Africa, and ensuring the continent can develop long-term, resilient infrastructure strategies.”
Dr Andrew Smith, COO and Co-Founder at Fathom, said: “It’s great to see our data contributing to such a meaningful initiative, supporting the Malaria Atlas Project in addressing one of the most pressing health challenges in the world today. By scrutinizing the relationship between climate change-induced flooding and malaria risk in Africa, we hope the project will support informed decision making to keep communities safe.”
With Fathom’s data already delivered, the primary analytics phase has now concluded and insights are now contributing to a new evidence base to motivate action at the intersection of malaria and climate change. The main outcomes of this project can be found here: https://malariaatlas.org/climate-change/