Spatiotemporal dynamics of arbovirus transmission: implications for disease control and elimination

Every year, hundreds of millions of people are infected by mosquito-borne viruses, such as dengue, Chikungunya and Zika. New promising vaccines, drugs and other interventions, such as making mosquitoes resistant to infection, are in advanced development, but to make best use of these we need to improve our understanding of how these infections are transmitted. We do not yet fully understand how and why transmission varies from place to place and how it is affected by climate.

I will assess how different interventions might reduce or stop the transmission of disease. I will use mathematics and statistics to analyse data collected from case studies in Latin America to better understand how seasonal changes in climate affect transmission and the geographic spread of epidemics. I will also predict the effect of using vaccination alone and in combination with other interventions.

This research will inform policy makers on how to best use interventions to prevent disease.