Africa Modelling Network for Neglected Diseases (AM2NTD)

The river behind Grandma’s farm was not just water, it was the heart of the village. Last Christmas, when Kofi returned from the city, the river was his first stop. He and Juma sat on the muddy edge, chewing fresh sugarcane…

"The river looked pure. Beautiful. Harmless..."
Our affiliate Joy Nthiwa talks about sanitation, poverty, stigma and hidden dangers of rivers and how the very act of survival can become a source of risk for contaminating #schistosomiasis. #NTDs #Bilharzia
medium.com/@joynthiwa03...

Against the odds, Libya has eliminated #Trachoma as a public health problem. This milestone shows that through collaboration, prevention, early detection, and control, #NTDs can be defeated.

The Accelerating Chikungunya Burden Estimation to Inform Vaccine Evaluation is a new CEMA_Africa study generating local data to guide #Chikungunya vaccine creation, rollout, & use. In a workshop this week the study team addressed knowledge gaps & strengthened readiness for frontline health workers.

Frontiers | Healthcare accessibility to rabies post-exposure prophylaxis in rural Kenya: implications for vaccine placement and travel time BackgroundRabid animal bites are a medical emergency, requiring immediate post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) to prevent human deaths. This study modeled geograp...

Dig in to find out more about this study by #CEMA affiliates, which examined how far, and how fast, people can reach health facilities stocking #rabies vaccines, and how optimizing vaccine placement within rural Kenya’s healthcare network could save lives.
#NTDs
www.frontiersin.org/journals/mic...

Coming up at 12PM EAT.
Don't forget to join us!

Register to join us tomorrow for this important webinar on #Kalaazar! #NTDs #Modelling #InfectiousDiseases
us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Scientists question blanket deworming activities in Kenya Mass drug administration delivered gains but is now inefficient and costly, suggests new study led by Dr Mutono Nyamai

Declining funding and sharp regional disparities in worm #STH infections expose the limits of a one-size-fits-all approach.

Kudos to our team led by Dr. Mutono for this important research, and The Star Kenya team for the coverage.

www.the-star.co.ke/health/2026-... #NTDs

We celebrate our fellows who are bringing precision to the fight against #NTDs like #Schistosomiasis & Soil-Transmitted Helminths #STH #SCH #WorldNTDDay

The River in Her Blood The cursor blinked at the end of a line of code. Mbula sat motionless in the glow of the monitor, watching the transmission dynamics…

From lived experience to running code, charting a path towards #schistosomiasis elimination! Our affiliate Joy Nthiwa is ensuring the next generation of children is protected. #NTDs

Read more -> medium.com/@joynthiwa03...

Seminar on #VL #Kalaazar by @am2ntd.bsky.social &
CEMA_Africa

Save the Date: shorturl.at/fpfkb

Let’s talk about using #mathematical tools to propose actionable strategies for risk assessment, surveillance enhancement, and targeted interventions towards elimination goals.
#NTDs

The world has hit a milestone: 58 countries have eliminated at least one #NTD as of 2026. But climate change is fighting back. From #Chikungunya in Kenya to #Dengue in Sudan, #EnvironmentalData and #Modelling are critical to predict risk and optimise response strategies.

The news that #trachoma risk has dropped from 1.5B people to under 100M isn't just a "nice stat", it’s a massive win for precision and, an indicator of what targeted, evidence-driven action looks like.
Here is to a year ahead where #modelling helps drive progress toward #NTD elimination.

At #AM2NTD, we take pride in working with partners to generate evidence that supports the most effective treatment strategies. #WorldChildrensDay

Today, as we join the world in marking World Children’s Day, we echo the need for steady leadership, stronger collaboration, and renewed commitment to ease the suffering of vulnerable populations, including children. #WorldChildrensDay

Every child has a right to feel safe, at peace, and protected from harm, including harm caused by disease.
Yet at least 1.2B children and adolescents under 25 (1 in 6 globally) are affected by one or more #NTDs, according to a
@lancetchildadol.bsky.social publication. #WorldChildrensDay

Bosco reiterated that MDA frequency matters, underscoring the urgency of shifting from the long-standing frequency (twice-yearly) to thrice-yearly MDA to accelerate Rwanda’s goal of eliminating #STH as a public health problem by 2030. #NTDs #TropMed25

Our fellow Jean Bosco Mbonigaba is attending the #ASTMH Conference, where he shared Rwanda’s progress and strategic shifts toward STH elimination. In his presentation, he shared that despite over a decade of #MDA, STH prevalence remains high in Rwanda. #NTDs #TropMed25

Countries continue to make great progress in the fight against Neglected Tropical Diseases #NTDs with some eliminating certain diseases entirely while others reducing them to levels they pose less threat to public health. These African countries have made great progress so far this year.

We linked this data with environmental covariates such precipitation and temperature, and incorporating the hashtag#spatial dependency, we were able to predict the prevalence of each STH-specific species."

In the #STH work, prevalence data were collected at the school level. For each school, we had the number of children tested, the number infected with each STH species (#Ascaris, #Trichuris, and #hookworm), and the geo-location of the school.

This means if two schools are close together, they are likely to have similar infection levels due to shared environmental, social, or ecological conditions. Geostatistical models use the tendency of nearby places being similar to improve predictions in unsampled locations.

The core idea of #geostatistics is the Tobler’s first law of geography:

"Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.”

"Geostatistical #modelling is a way of analyzing data that varies across space. It helps us understand not only the level of something (like disease prevalence) at the places we sampled, but also make predictions in areas we didn’t sample.

As a follow-up to our recent post on using #GeostatisticalModelling to inform targeted #STH interventions in Kenya, our #datascientist and paper co-author Brian Njuguna takes it a step further, breaking down the modelling process and the analysis approach our team used. #NTDs

Geostatistical models do more than crunch numbers; they reveal where disease burdens are hiding. This is because when you’re tackling diseases that affect millions, data is telling, but local-level data enables precision health interventions that blanket strategies can’t achieve.

The takeaway was that one-size-fits-all Mass Drug Administration (MDA) is no longer enough and that Kenya now has the tools to redirect deworming efforts where they’re needed most.

while overall prevalence above 20% is becoming rare, localized high-risk pockets still remain and warrant targeted attention.

They found that roundworm clusters predominantly in Western Kenya, whipworm poses a higher risk in the Southwestern and Coastal regions, and hookworm persists mainly along the Coast...

to uncover hidden disease patterns and guide smarter interventions.

Using data from 146,668 children in 3,752 schools across 207 sub-counties, they mapped the distribution of Ascaris lumbricoides (roundworm), Trichuris trichiura (whipworm) and Hookworm.

sciencedirect.com/science/arti...