Defining a prevalence level to describe the elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) transmission and designing monitoring & evaluating (M&E) programmes post the cessation of mass drug administration (MDA)
Author(s)
Collyer, Benjamin S
Irvine, Michael A
Hollingsworth, T Deidre
Bradley, Mark
Anderson, Roy M
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The global decline in prevalence of lymphatic filariasis has been one of the major successes of the WHO’s NTD programme. The recommended strategy of intensive, community-wide mass drug administration, aims to break localised transmission by either reducing the prevalence of microfilaria positive infections to below 1%, or antigen positive infections to below 2%. After the threshold is reached, and mass drug administration is stopped, geographically defined evaluation units must pass Transmission Assessment Surveys to demonstrate that transmission has been interrupted. In this study, we use an empirically parameterised stochastic transmission model to investigate the appropriateness of 1% microfilaria-positive prevalence as a stopping threshold, and statistically evaluate how well various monitoring prevalence-thresholds predict elimination or disease resurgence in the future by calculating their predictive value. Our results support the 1% filaremia prevalence target as appropriate stopping criteria. However, because at low prevalence-levels random events dominate the transmission dynamics, we find single prevalence measurements have poor predictive power for predicting resurgence, which suggests alternative criteria for restarting MDA may be beneficial.
Date Issued
2020-10-01
Date Acceptance
2020-07-27
Citation
PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 2020, 14 (10), pp.1-21
ISSN
1935-2727
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Start Page
1
End Page
21
Journal / Book Title
PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
Volume
14
Issue
10
Copyright Statement
© 2020 Collyer et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
License URL
Sponsor
GlaxoSmithKline Services Unlimited
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000581735500007&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Grant Number
n/a
MR/R015600/1
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Infectious Diseases
Parasitology
Tropical Medicine
INFECTION
DYNAMICS
MODEL
LONGEVITY
IMPACT
BLOOD
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN e0008644
Date Publish Online
2020-10-12