Project Title: A Novel Geostatistical Approach to Estimate the Burden of Lymphatic Filariasis in Endemic Countries
Project summary: Lymphatic filariasis (LF) is a disfiguring and disabling disease, often requiring life-long care facilitated by the identification of case distributions. Current global disease burden estimates of 31 million LF cases are out-dated as they are based on data from the pre-2000s. Whole country house-to-house case finding is expensive, meaning more cost-effective approaches are needed. Malawi is the first country to estimate LF cases using a novel geostatistical approach [1].
Before this can be scaled up in other endemic countries, the next step is to optimise a sampling strategy for house-to-house case finding and validate this geostatistical approach for national LF programmes operational use.