Half of the world’s population are at risk of contracting dengue according to the World Health Organization. Understanding the infected person’s travel behaviour can be estimated to a number of infections that were imported into different countries each month. The tool that was discovered will determine the infections’ country of origin that will able to uncover the route which dengue is most likely to spread.
According to Professor Raja Jurdak, QUT, This tool is the first tool to be able to forecast the absolute number of dengue importations, rather than the relative risk at a global level. This tool will be very useful to assist public health authorities with dengue preparedness according to Dr Cassie Jansen, a researcher at Queensland Health. Locations, where new dengue outbreaks may occur, can be located by following the arrival of the infected passenger. This tool can also be applied to other vector-borne diseases of global malaria concerns such as malaria, Zika and chikungunya. Find out more about this study, here.