Current Projects

Malaria Atlas Project (MAP)

The Malaria Atlas Project (MAP) was founded in 2005 to provide a robust, open-access spatial medical intelligence resource for the malaria research and control communities, filling a niche that has been neglected for some forty years.

The MAP team have collected the largest ever archive of community-based Plasmodium falciparum parasite prevalence surveys, spanning all parts of the malaria endemic world. Using modern geospatial modelling techniques, these data have been used to generate continuous global maps of Plasmodium falciparum infection risk that are now being used as the basis for national malaria control plans. In 2009 work began to extend these efforts to map the global extent and morbid burden of Plasmodium vivax malaria.

In addition to these endemicity mapping efforts, the MAP is undertaking similar database assembly and spatial modelling activities in order to generate global maps of (i) species ranges for 41 Anopheles identified as locally dominant vectors for malaria and (ii) the inherited blood disorders including sickle cell disease, Duffy negativity, G6PD deficiency, and the thalassemias.

MAP is primarily funded by the Wellcome Trust, and represents an international collaboration between six organisations:

• Spatial Ecology & Epidemiology Group (SEEG), Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, UK
• National Institute of Infectious and Tropical Diseases (NIITD), Hanoi, Viet Nam
• Kenyan Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), Nairobi, Kenya
• The Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology, Indonesia
• Emerging Pathogens Institute, University of Florida, USA
• Corporación Ecuatoriana de Biotecnología, Quito, Ecuador

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For more information, visit: http://www.map.ox.ac.uk

Many thanks to colleagues Simon Hay and Will Temperley.