Making malaria history

I am a medical doctor and Public health specialist with an experience in the fight against infectious and parasitic diseases in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); I have a broad interest in infectious diseases and global health with special focus in malaria. My professional activities combine teaching, conducting research, and involving in public health interventions. My current research aims to apply molecular approaches and statistical modeling for fighting against malaria and drug resistant malaria parasites in the DRC, in Africa and beyond.

Malaria is one of the deadliest infectious diseases in the world and particularly in Africa where every minute a child under five years old dies from this preventable disease. By reporting more than 10% of all malaria cases every year while it has a population of less than 0.02% of the world’s population, the DRC is one of the most affected countries by the disease and represents a potential hub for drug-resistant malaria globally. I thus use statistical models to assess malaria burden (e.g., disease cost, latent infections at community level, etc.) for guiding countrywide public health strategies. Malaria drug resistance which is the main cause of treatment failure, is hard to track at population scale. I thus apply molecular surrogates of drug resistance to track resistance to antimalarial drugs and to predict its geographic patterns. My initial focus is the DRC but I extend my interest to Africa and beyond.