Decision support for malaria-control programmes – a system dynamics model

Although malaria claims millions of casualties every year there are hardly any recent efforts to model its epidemiology in order to support decision-makers of malaria-control programmes. There have been ample attempts to develop analytical models during the era of WHO malaria eradication programmes (1950–1970), but none of them was detailed enough to honour the high complexity arising from the interdependencies of the environment, the parasite, vector and host system. This paper presents a multi-group system dynamics model of the spread of malaria in an African country. Epidemiological details are included so that the impact of several intervention programmes can be simulated and analysed. The model's basic structure is fully described and some examples of the simulations are presented. It becomes obvious that detailed multi-group system dynamics models are valuable to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of anti-malaria campaigns.