GIS & ENVIROMENTAL

The Geographic Information System (GIS) and Environmental Surveillance (ES) component is an integral part of the ICEMR that provides cross-cutting technical support in mapping and other geospatial needs for all constituent projects. It is designed to characterize the social and physical environments in the study areas in Macha, Choma District, and Mutasa District in Zimbabwe. This component is critical in providing basic information needed for the study of the epidemiology of malaria, vector biology and parasite genomics. The core undertakes all the satellite imagery-based sampling and temporal and spatial modelling for the ICEMR projects, producing monthly maps of the malaria cases by RDT from RHCs in Macha, Nchelenge and Mutasa using ArcGIS (mapping software), as well as REDCap (a web-based platform for managing surveys and databases) through the SMS surveillance programme. These data are uploaded to REDCap and shared with stakeholders in the Ministry of Health and project PIs. This enables the project to quickly communicate the malaria incidence to all stakeholders in the three study sites. The team is composed of the leads Tim Shields (GIS and Environmental Surveillance), Frank Curriero (Spatial Statistics) and Andre Hackman (Data Management) at JHU and MukumaLubinda (GIS), Japhet Matoba (Data Management) and CaisonSing’anga (Assisting with Environment, and Health Centre malaria surveillance) at MRT.

For the period under review, the unit was able to create and share monthly malaria prevalence maps for all the 14 RHCs in Macha, 15 RHCs in Nchelenge, and 44 RHCs in Mutasa. The number of health centers from which surveillance data was being collected from remained the same as it was in the previous year.