Network Systems Science and Advanced Computing | Population Health Informatics

Bohemia

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Unitaid

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease that is a leading cause of death in many developing countries, with young children and pregnant women the most affected.

Nearly half the world’s population lives in areas at risk of malaria transmission in 91 countries and territories.
In 2016, malaria caused an estimated 216 million clinical episodes, and 445,000 deaths. An estimated 90% of deaths in 2016 were in the WHO African Region.
Direct costs alone (illness, treatment, premature death) have been estimated to be at least US$ 12 billion per year. The cost in lost economic growth is many times more than that.

This project aims to reduce malaria transmission by administering ivermectin to humans and livestock. Ivermectin is an endectocide, a drug that can kill ecto- and endoparasites, as well as mosquitoes that feed on treated humans or animals. The overall goal of the project is to conduct randomized control trials through mass drug administration of ivermectin (iMDA) in humans and animals in Tanzania and Mozambique.

The goal of our team is to provide an economic analysis for the use of iMDA which will include a cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis. Our economic analysis will provide a measure of cost per case averted for each iMDA intervention strategy as compared to current malaria interventions. Both provider and societal perspectives on costs will be calculated, including explicit measures of the impact of iMDA on human and livestock health and productivity.

The BOHEMIA team at the University of Virginia is working with researchers at Virginia Tech in assessing the economic impact of BOHEMIA. Work covered by UVA team is a sub-study of the BOHEMIA program. Activities for this study will be conducted in conjunction with the BOHEMIA clinical trial. The BOHEMIA clinical trial is a cluster randomized, parallel arm, controlled and double blinded trial testing the efficacy of ivermectin mass drug administration (iMDA) on malaria-related epidemiological outcomes when given simultaneously to humans and livestock.

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