HydroVec

HydroVec is a Wellcome funded climate–health project (approximately 3.5 years) designed to strengthen surveillance, preparedness, and response to malaria in areas affected by extreme hydro-meteorological events. The project focuses on understanding and predicting how events such as floods and heavy rainfall influence malaria transmission, particularly in climate-vulnerable and high-burden settings.

The project integrates diverse data sources including epidemiological malaria data, environmental and meteorological information, and population mobility with modelling approaches and digital tools to generate timely and spatially explicit insights on malaria risk. These outputs are designed to support both immediate disaster response and longer-term malaria control planning.

A central objective of HydroVec is to bridge the gap between data generation and decision-making through its Pathways to Policy and Practice Work Package. Through structured engagement with Ministry of Health policymakers and stakeholders across health, climate, environment, and disaster response sectors, the project ensures that malaria risk information is translated into actionable insights for policy and practice. This includes supporting the targeting of interventions, resource allocation, and preparedness planning in flood-prone areas.

Timeline: June 2023 to November 2026.

Contact Information and Details of Project

Lead: Dr Rhona Mijumbi – Rhona.Mijumbi@lstmed.ac.uk / rmijumbi@mlw.mw

Project contact person – Talitha Mpando (tmpando@mlw.mw)