title: A Theoretical Analysis of the Geography of Schistosomiasis in Burkina Faso Highlights the Roles of Human Mobility and Water Resources Development in Disease Transmission.
abstract: We study the geography of schistosomiasis across Burkina Faso by means of a spatially explicit model of water-based disease dynamics. The model quantitatively addresses the geographic stratification of disease burden in a novel framework by explicitly accounting for drivers and controls of the disease, including spatial information on the distributions of population and infrastructure, jointly with a general description of human mobility and climatic/ecological drivers. Spatial patterns of disease are analysed by the extraction and the mapping of suitable eigenvectors of the Jacobian matrix subsuming the stability of the disease-free equilibrium. The relevance of the work lies in the novel mapping of disease burden, a byproduct of the parametrization induced by regional upscaling, by model-guided field validations and in the predictive scenarios allowed by exploiting the range of possible parameters and processes. Human mobility is found to be a primary control at regional scales both for pathogen invasion success and the overall distribution of disease burden. The effects of water resources development highlighted by systematic reviews are accounted for by the average distances of human settlements from water bodies that are habitats for the parasite's intermediate host. Our results confirm the empirical findings about the role of water resources development on disease spread into regions previously nearly disease-free also by inspection of empirical prevalence patterns. We conclude that while the model still needs refinements based on field and epidemiological evidence, the proposed framework provides a powerful tool for large-scale public health planning and schistosomiasis management.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Ecohydrology, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Perez-Saez
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Lorenzo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Mari
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Ecohydrology, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bertuzzo
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Renato
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Casagrandi
authors.affiliation: Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, Pacific Grove, California, United States of America; Marine Science Institute, University of California Santa Barbara, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Susanne H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Sokolow
authors.affiliation: Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, Pacific Grove, California, United States of America; Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Giulio A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: De Leo
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Ecohydrology, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Theophile
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mande
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Ecohydrology, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Natalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ceperley
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Ecohydrology, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Jean-Marc
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Froehlich
authors.affiliation: Institute International d'Ingénierie de l'Eau et de l'Environment, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
authors.forename: Mariam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sou
authors.affiliation: Institute International d'Ingénierie de l'Eau et de l'Environment, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
authors.forename: Harouna
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Karambiri
authors.affiliation: Institute International d'Ingénierie de l'Eau et de l'Environment, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
authors.forename: Hamma
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yacouba
authors.affiliation: Institute International d'Ingénierie de l'Eau et de l'Environment, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
authors.forename: Amadou
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Maiga
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Marino
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gatto
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Ecohydrology, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland; Dipartimento ICEA, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rinaldo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002050:Burkina Faso / Q000453:epidemiology; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D006802:Human Activities; D006801:Humans; D015233:Models, Statistical; D015995:Prevalence; D012552:Schistosomiasis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D019371:Topography, Medical; D062066:Water Resources