Using novel technologies for real-time monitoring of the risk of mosquito-borne diseases in the context of climate and land-use changes - "ClimateBuzz'"

The study intends to investigate associations between climate, land-use and mosquito-borne disease risk at the local scale in southeastern Tanzania.

The study will expand and use the same Premonition network and infrastructure to directly address the current gaps in linking insect survey data to changes in climate and land-use and pathogen transmission.

Specific aims of the study include;

1. To demonstrate the potential of the Premonition-based surveillance network for integrating environmental, metagenomic and entomological data streams to predict key transmission indicators of mosquito-borne diseases in areas typically underserved by current surveillance networks.
2. To investigate climate-dependent survival strategies of the medically-important Anopheles and Aedes mosquitoes across seasons, altitudes and land-use patterns, and how these may influence the transmission patterns of diseases such as malaria and dengue.
3. To demonstrate the potential of using the entomological data (of mosquitoes and any by-catch) as indicators of climate change under different land-use patterns.
4. To build a mechanistic model that integrates multiple data streams to improve the understanding of climate change as a driver of mosquito population dynamics and mosquito-borne diseases. 

The study will be conducted in Ulanga and Kilombero districts, in south-eastern Tanzania, and will cover both the rural villages and the fast-growing town of Ifakara, Morogoro.

This will be a three year study (February 2023 - February 2026) and will be funded by The Wellcome Trust.