Recipient Organization
MICHIGAN STATE UNIV
(N/A)
EAST LANSING,MI 48824
Performing Department
GEOGRAPHY
Non Technical Summary
African trypanosomiasis is a parasitic disease transmitted by the tsetse fly (genus Glossina) to wildlife (i.e., mainly cattle) and humans. It is considered one of the most important economically debilitating diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa (Olet, 2003; Oloo, 2006). Three major epidemics have occurred in the past hundred years, one between 1896 and 1906, and the other two in 1920 and 1970 (WHO, 2006). In 1986, approximately 70 million people were estimated to be at risk of exposure to tsetse in Sub-Saharan Africa (WHO, 2006). A decade later, it was estimated that at least 300,000 cases were underreported due to lack of surveillance capabilities, diagnostic expertise, and health care access (Medical Ecology, 2004; Kennedy, 2005; WHO, 2006). In response to these limitations, WHO, with public and private partnerships, initiated a new surveillance and elimination program (WHO, 2006). During the implementation of this program, approximately 20,000 new cases were reported including an estimated cumulative rate of 50,000 to 70,000 cases (Weekly Epidemiological Record, 2006). Furthermore, in some areas, HAT symptoms were misdiagnosed as malaria, and therefore masked the overall number of new HAT cases (Kennedy, 2005, 2006). Animal African trypanosomiasis (AAT) can indirectly affect the lives of people in Sub-Saharan Africa because it can decimate livestock and thus impact nutrition and livelihoods (Olet, 2003; Oloo, 2006). It is estimated that livestock productivity decreases by 20% to 40% in tsetse infested areas (Hursey, 2001; Rogers and Randolph, 2002). In Kenya, where agriculture accounts for 27% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Bourn et al., 2001), the economic burden of sleeping sickness is felt at both local and national scales (Welburn et al., 2006). By the mid-1960s, HAT appeared to be under control in Africa. However, by the mid-1970s, HAT reemerged due to a breakdown in surveillance and control programs compounded by drug resistance, genetic changes in the parasite, civil conflict, and anthropogenic (land use and cover changes) and natural (climate) environmental changes (as cited in Kennedy, 2005; WHO, 2006). Since then, sleeping sickness has been reported in 37 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (Oloo, 2006). The geographic distribution of the tsetse fly varies across different types of habitats with different environmental controls. Habitats range from the tropical rain forest to semi-arid grass savannah and wet mangrove, but are generally found in the vegetation along rivers and lakes and throughout woody savannah (Ford, 1971; WHO, 2006). The study would be the first to: 1) describe the role of climate change on tsetse distributions; 2) systematically determine the distribution of tsetse across socio-demographic, biophysical, and geographical gradients; 3) determine climate-land linkages of landscape disturbance on habitat suitability; 4) spatially map quantitative patterns of tsetse distribution along a gradient of land use and cover (ecological) disturbance; and 5) identify potential metrics describing human land cover activities that could be managed for better tsetse control and prevention.
Animal Health Component
30%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
40%
Applied
30%
Developmental
30%
Goals / Objectives
The overall goal of the proposed study is to examine, build, and test a predictive model that defines the relationships between climate change, landuse and cover change, social systems, and ecological disturbance on the ecological distribution of tsetse flies and African Trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness. The information produced will directly affect on-going tsetse control programs and make a substantial contribution to understanding broader patterns of human-environment impacts, ecologically related changes, disease emergence, transmission, prevention and control, and future risk.
Project Methods
This project will develop and deploy an innovative advanced spatial simulation system that integrates dynamic multi-scale, multi-agent models, geographical and epidemiological methods, and a regional climate model. The study will enhance the scientific understanding of human impacts on ecological systems, how these changes influence the potential for disease emergence and transmission, and what models can be generated using new and existing climate, landscape, social, and organismal data to predict, or associate, disease epidemiology with ecological processes at multiple spatial, social, and biophysical scales of organization