Abstract

A campaign for malaria control, using Long Lasting Insecticide Nets (LLINs) was launched in South Sudan in 2009. The success of such a campaign often depends upon adequate available resources and reliable surveillance data which help officials understand existing infections. An optimal allocation of resources for malaria control at a sub-national scale is therefore paramount to the success of efforts to reduce malaria prevalence. In this paper, we extend an existing SIR mathematical model to capture the effect of LLINs on malaria transmission. Available data on malaria is utilized to determine realistic parameter values of this model using a Bayesian approach via Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. Then, we explore the parasite prevalence on a continued rollout of LLINs in three different settings in order to create a sub-national projection of malaria. Further, we calculate the model’s basic reproductive number and study its sensitivity to LLINs’ coverage and its efficacy. From the numerical simulation results, we notice a basic reproduction number, , confirming a substantial increase of incidence cases if no form of intervention takes place in the community. This work indicates that an effective use of LLINs may reduce and hence malaria transmission. We hope that this study will provide a basis for recommending a scaling-up of the entry point of LLINs’ distribution that targets households in areas at risk of malaria.

Highlights

  • The Republic of South Sudan (RSS) is among the countries in sub-Saharan Africa that are most severely affected by malaria and is currently experiencing an unprecedented outbreak of malaria

  • We found that the disease transmission increases or decreases greatly with an increase or decrease in the contact rate to susceptible mosquito σi and the biting rate

  • We presented a mathematical model in order to explore the impact of Long Lasting Insecticide Nets (LLINs) on malaria transmissions using a system of ordinary differential equations

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Summary

Introduction

The Republic of South Sudan (RSS) is among the countries in sub-Saharan Africa that are most severely affected by malaria and is currently experiencing an unprecedented outbreak of malaria. Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have reported that, in the year 2015, malaria outbreaks in South Sudan were considered to be the most hazardous in the region [1, 2]. The country is facing a number of tremendous challenges, the most notable being the limitation of human and financial resources due to the ongoing war and civilian instability. The government agencies of South Sudan, as well as many Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have committed to reducing this ongoing outbreak of malaria.

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