QWECI

Quantifying Weather and Climate Impacts on Health in Developing Countries

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'One of the most dramatic and immediate impacts of climate variation is that on disease, especially the vector-borne diseases that disproportionally affect the poorest people in Africa. Although we can clearly see that, for example, an El Nino event triggers Rift Valley Fever epidemics, we remain poor at understanding why particular areas are vulnerable and how this will change in coming decades, since climate change is likely to cause entirely new global disease distributions. This applies to most vector borne disease. At the same time, we do not know currently the limit of predictability of the specific climate drivers for vector-borne disease using state-of-the-art seasonal forecast models, and how best to use these to produce skilful infection-rate predictions on seasonal timescales. The QWeCI project thus aims to understand at a more fundamental level the climate drivers of the vector-borne diseases of malaria, Rift Valley Fever, and certain tick-borne diseases, which all have major human and livestock health and economic implications in Africa, in order to assist with their short-term management and make projections of their future likely impacts. QWeCI will develop and test the methods and technology required for an integrated decision support framework for health impacts of climate and weather. Uniquely, QWeCl will bring together the best in world integrated weather/climate forecasting systems with heath impacts modelling and climate change research groups in order to build an end-to-end seamless integration of climate and weather information for the quantification and prediction of climate and weather on health impacts in Africa.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

An EU-funded project has taken great strides towards the modelling and monitoring of vector-borne diseases in Africa, driven by climate change.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

The realisation that certain disease outbreaks are closely linked with changes in climate dates back to ancient times. However, our knowledge is incomplete when it comes to how particularly vulnerable areas will be affected in coming decades.

Increased accuracy of seasonal weather forecasting using state-of-the-art equipment will hopefully enable the prediction of epidemic-prone infectious diseases. The aim of the EU-funded 'Quantifying weather and climate impacts on health in developing countries' (http://www.liv.ac.uk/qweci (QWECI)) project was to understand why certain vector-borne diseases disproportionately affect certain parts of the world under specific climate conditions.

Running in Ghana, Malawi and Senegal, the project studied how climate variation impacts on disease, especially vector-borne diseases including malaria and Rift Valley fever.

The Ghana field project focused on the links between and mechanisms of malaria emergence, transmission and spread, and the role of climate change on disease variability. In Malawi, researchers collected incidence data from hospitals, and in Senegal they studied climate, water quality, vegetation, land use and veterinary aspects.

Together, these studies helped generate medical databases and an atmospheric database with information about the geographical distribution of pathogens and potential climate drivers. A malaria prediction model was also created for the realistic simulation of seasonal disease patterns.

Overall, QWECI improved modelling of health impacts in the African context through these field projects. Researchers also helped African stakeholders by providing up-to-date disease maps and a comprehensive early warning system for disease outbreaks in African countries.

By bringing together climate forecasting systems, modelling and climate change research groups, QWECI has provided an invaluable tool to help decision makers combat disease in Africa.