Measles and Polio Risk Modeling in Africa

Cari van Schalkwyk of Stellenbosch University in South Africa will expand and support the African community of polio and measles disease modelers. The work will be done through the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis (SACEMA), which is hosted at Stellenbosch University. It will build on an ongoing fellowship program for health policy modeling by recruiting and supporting two new cohorts. Modelers will use available data to develop, validate, and package modeling methods for polio and measles that help African decision-makers assess the risk of outbreaks and the impact of vaccination programs. Additional work will target research goals that include developing enhanced methods to estimate population immunity to polio, comparing existing methods to determine how consistent they are, and extending ongoing modeling work evaluating wastewater-based surveillance of polio and measles as an early-warning signal for outbreaks and to monitor outbreak dynamics.