Reconstructing the transmission intensity of arboviruses across Africa and the impact of interventions in a changing climate

There is an urgent need to understand the past, current, and future transmission of arboviruses for preparedness and response planning, and to inform the optimal implementation of existing and novel interventions globally and across Africa.

To achieve this, we need to reconstruct the immunity profile of the population, which is a key driver of arbovirus transmission dynamics.

Age-stratified seroprevalence surveys are among the best surveillance tools to estimate the population age-dependent susceptibility to infection.

Despite this, due to costs, and lack of resources and infrastructure, only 17 age-stratified dengue seroprevalence surveys have been conducted across Africa to date.

Building on the SERODEN project in Ghana, Senegal and DRC, we propose to expand testing of existing blood samples from recent serosurveys conducted across Africa for pathogens other than arboviruses, to assess the seroprevalence of at least 11 arboviruses using a validated and standardised Luminex assay.

We will develop new mathematical models and R packages to facilitate the interpretation of the results obtained with the Luminex assay and generate force of infection estimates across hundreds of locations, which will be used to validate and refine current burden estimates and to assess the potential impact of interventions under the current and changing climate.