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Tanzania surveillance arboviruses Preview

Where in the Lake region will dengue first establish under projected climate change?

Identifying the Lake-region districts at highest risk of dengue establishment under 2030 and 2050 climate projections.

Ministry · Ministry of Health (Tanzania) / IDSR / Surveillance

Difficulty
PhD
Timeline
12 months
Methods
4 listed
Budget ask
USD 3,500
species distribution modelling vector ecology climate projection coupling point-process inference

Why it matters

Tanzania's IDSR system tracks dengue events but has no forward-looking risk surface. With Aedes aegypti vector capacity shifting under climate change, ministry surveillance needs to know which districts to monitor more closely — before the first outbreak, not after.

The question

Under representative concentration pathway scenarios for 2030 and 2050, which Lake-region districts move into the high-risk envelope for dengue establishment, and what are the surveillance-cost-effective monitoring intensifications?

Why now

Dengue establishment in East Africa is no longer a hypothetical. Vector Atlas and MAP data show Aedes aegypti range expanding into previously cool zones around Lake Victoria. The Tanzanian IDSR system is well-instrumented for response but under-instrumented for forward-looking risk. A spatial model that couples vector ecology to climate projections fills that gap.

Methods landscape (sketch)

A two-stage architecture: Stage 1 — mechanism-informed vector-capacity surface from vector-ecology data (the Vector Atlas / MAP lineage). Stage 2 — Bayesian spatial point-process model with covariates from climate projections, with epi events as the response. Channel the Nick lens: do not let a NegBin replace the GP, do not claim identifiability the data cannot support.

Full dossier with starter pack, data sources, supervisor and adviser publishes on v0.1. Working-modeller adviser ask out to IDEM-LAB / Vector Atlas.