Epidemiology overview

Headed by Prof Richard Maude, the Epidemiology Department at MORU works in close collaboration with other departments and units across the MORU network, national disease control programmes and a broad range of other collaborators. In all projects, the Epidemiology Department works with policy-makers as partners to address the scientific questions most pertinent to the disease control and elimination agendas and generate evidence to inform policy decisions.

The Epidemiology-hosted regional workshop on Measuring and Modelling Forest Malaria in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS)in Bangkok provided an introduction to modelling malaria, defined regional research priorities to measure and model forest malaria, and introduced MORU’s new BMGF-funded project, Enhanced Modeling for NMCP Decision-Making in the GMS to Accelerate Malaria Elimination (ENDGAME), which will provide modelling support GMS National Malaria Control Programmes

Our current projects focus on malaria, dengue, novel pathogens, population mapping and environmental health with staff based in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom and Viet Nam.

The Epidemiology Department’s primary research aims are to quantify the burden of malaria, dengue and other communicable diseases in South and Southeast Asia over space and time and investigate their determinants to inform planning of disease control and elimination strategies. Core components include:

Clinical and epidemiological field studies
Collation and analysis of secondary data from a wide range of partners
GIS mapping
Spatial statistical analysis and modelling
Building epidemiology, modelling and mapping capacity across the region