Climate change and the dynamics of age-related malaria incidence in Southern Africa: A focus on Zambia.

ABSTRACT In the last decade, many malaria-endemic countries, like Zambia, have achieved significant reductions in malaria incidence among children We used parametric and non-parametric statistics to model the effects of climatic and socio-demographic variables on age-specific malaria incidence vis-a-vis control interventions. Linear regressions, mixed models, and Mann-Kendall tests were implemented to explore trends, changes in trends, and regress malaria against environmental and intervention variables. Our study shows that while climate parameters affect the whole population, their impacts are felt most by people aged ≥5 years. Climate variables influenced malaria substantially more than mosquito nets and indoor residual spraying interventions. We establish that climate parameters is negatively impacting malaria control efforts by exacerbating the transmission conditions via more conducive temperature and rainfall environments, which in turn are exacerbated by cultural and socioeconomic exposure mechanisms. We argue that an intensified communications and education intervention strategy for behavioural change specifically targeted at ≥5 aged population where incidence rates are increasing, is urgently required and call for further malaria stratification among the ≥5 age groups in the routine collection, analysis and reporting of malaria mortality and incidence data.