Southampton research is at the forefront of the worldwide battle to eradicate malaria. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Geographer Dr Andy Tatem’s research is changing the way we are tackling the elimination of malaria in individual countries and across continents.

How does malaria impact on people around the globe?

There were an estimated 207 million cases of malaria in 2012 and approximately 627,000 deaths. In 2012, malaria killed an estimated 482,000 children under five years of age, which equates to 1,300 children every day, or one child almost every minute. Between 2000 and 2012, the scale-up of interventions helped to reduce malaria incidence rates by 25 per cent globally, and by 31 per cent in the World Health Organization African Region.

How is mobile phone data helping us to understand and contain the spread of malaria?

We are using anonymised mobile phone usage data to map the movements of populations in and between malaria ‘hotspots’. Understanding the movements of a country’s population can be crucial in eliminating malaria. Attempts to clear the disease from an area can be ruined by highly mobile populations quickly reintroducing the parasite. We have created population mobility maps with this data, which are making the eradication of malaria a real possibility. Because humans and mosquitoes carry the disease from endemic areas across international boundaries and within countries, it is crucially important to monitor and contain outbreaks and avoid endemic transmission from restarting.

Who have you been working with on this research?

We have led an international study into this area alongside the National Vector-borne Diseases Control Programme (NVDCP) in Namibia and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI). Additionally, we have been funded by the Bill and Melinda gates Foundation, and worked in collaboration with the World Health Organization.

How are we using population mapping to affect change in society?

Our maps and data are helping charities, policy-makers, governments and researchers to make decisions which affect the quality of people’s lives. These could be as diverse as predicting the spread of infectious diseases, planning the development of transport systems or distributing vital aid to disaster zones. In the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, which struck the Philippines with devastating effect, international organisations were able to download information about pre-typhoon population distribution from our website to help with estimating impact and delivering aid efforts,