Book review

Review of 'Environmental factors and malaria transmission risk: Modelling the risk in a holoendemic area of Burkina Faso' by Yazoume Yé, Osman Sankoh, Bocar Kouyaté and Rainer Sauerborn

Bart GJ Knols

Laboratory of Entomology, Wageningen University and Research Centre, PO Box 8031, 6700 EH, Wageningen, The Netherlands

author email corresponding author email

Parasites & Vectors 2009, 2:14doi:10.1186/1756-3305-2-14

Published:	11 March 2009

First paragraph (this article has no abstract)

When I received the above book for review, my first thought was 'Great, this is another Garki Project' [1]. Anyone interested in the early developments regarding the epidemiology and understanding of malaria transmission dynamics in Africa will be familiar with this classic study that took place in the Garki district of Nigeria, between 1969–1975. It remains one of the most elaborate studies that measured the relationship of entomological, parasitological, and seroimmunological variables that led to the development of a mathematical model of the transmission of malaria. Yazoume Yé and colleagues present a much shorter (1-year) study undertaken in the Kossi district, north-west Burkina Faso, where they followed a cohort of nearly 900 children from four villages (1 urban, 3 rural) and collected entomological and climate data, with the aim to integrate this into a dynamic model driven by temperature and rainfall. This model should then serve to predict the risk of malaria transmission and forecast outbreaks among children <5 yrs of age.