Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Travel Med Infect Dis. 2013 Jan-Feb;11(1):15-22. doi: 10.1016/j.tmaid.2012.12.003. Epub 2013 Mar 9.
Human mobility plays an important role in the dissemination of malaria parasites between regions of variable transmission intensity. Asymptomatic individuals can unknowingly carry parasites to regions where mosquito vectors are available, for example, undermining control programs and contributing to transmission when they travel. Understanding how parasites are imported between regions in this way is therefore an important goal for elimination planning and the control of transmission, and would enable control programs to target the principal sources of malaria. Measuring human mobility has traditionally been difficult to do on a population scale, but the widespread adoption of mobile phones in low-income settings presents a unique opportunity to directly measure human movements that are relevant to the spread of malaria. Here, we discuss the opportunities for measuring human mobility using data from mobile phones, as well as some of the issues associated with combining mobility estimates with malaria infection risk maps to meaningfully estimate routes of parasite importation.
人类流动在疟疾寄生虫在不同传播强度地区之间的传播中起着重要作用。无症状个体可能会不知不觉地将寄生虫携带到有蚊子媒介的地区，例如，当他们旅行时，会破坏控制计划并导致传播。因此，了解寄生虫以这种方式在地区之间输入是消除规划和传播控制的一个重要目标，这将使控制计划能够针对疟疾的主要来源。传统上，很难在人口规模上测量人类流动，但在低收入环境中广泛采用移动电话为直接测量与疟疾传播相关的人类活动提供了独特的机会。在这里，我们讨论了使用来自移动电话的数据测量人类流动的机会，以及将流动估计与疟疾感染风险图结合起来以有意义地估计寄生虫输入途径相关的一些问题。
