Geospatial based model for malaria risk prediction in Kilombero Valley, south-eastern Tanzania

Background: Malaria continues to pose a major public health challenge in tropical regions. Despite significant efforts to control malaria in Tanzania, there are still residual transmission cases. Unfortunately, little is known about where these residual malaria transmission cases occur and how they spread. In Tanzania, for example, the transmission is heterogeneously distributed. In order to effectively control and prevent the spread of malaria, it is essential to understand the spatial distribution and transmission patterns of the disease. This study seeks to predict areas that are at high risk of malaria transmission so that intervention measures can be developed to accelerate malaria elimination efforts.

Methods: This study employs a geospatial-based model to predict and map out malaria risk area in Kilombero Valley. Environmental factors related to malaria transmission were considered and assigned valuable weights in the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), an online system using a p..., Data acquisition and description
The study employed both primary and secondary data, which were collected from numerous sources based on the input required for the implementation of the predictive model. Data collected includes the locations of all public and private health centers that were downloaded free from the health portal of the United Republic of Tanzania, Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly, and Children, through the universal resource locator (URL) (http://moh.go.tz/hfrportal/). Human population data was collected from the 2012 population housing census (PHC) for the United Republic of Tanzania report.
Rainfall data were obtained from two local offices; Kilombero Agricultural Training and Research Institute (KATRIN) and Kilombero Valley Teak Company (KVTC). These offices collect meteorological data for agricultural purposes. Monthly data from 2012 to 2017 provided from thirteen (13) weather stations. Road and stream network shapefiles were downloaded fr...,