Risk maps: Transmission and Burden of vector-borne diseases

e scientific literature 3--20 . Risk maps for malaria in Africa are epitomized by the MARA (Mapping Malaria Risk in Africa) initiative at the continent level 16,17 and by country-level studies in Kenya and the Gambia 10,19,20 . Exceptions to these macro-scale studies include a study by Ribeiro et al. 14 of the distribution of Anopheles mosquitoes in an Ethiopian village, and a microepidemiological study in Mozambique by Thompson et al. 18 . For malaria, not only is the spatial and temporal association between mosquito larvae and risk of severe disease complex, but the density of adult female mosquitoes is not always correlated with parasite transmission intensity and occurrence of severe disease 21 . The paucity of accurate epidemiological data and the high degree of heterogeneity in transmission patterns, even on a microscale, provide a challenge for ri