As countries reduce malaria transmission and work towards malaria elimination, there is a need for improved surveillance to target prevention efforts to areas of continued transmission as well as to verify and document success. To achieve this, a new longitudinal cohort study is planned in Southern Province, Zambia, were malaria incidence has declined significantly but residual transmission remains. The objectives of this study include identifying individual, household and ecological risk factors for transmission in a pre-elimination setting and identifying serological markers for incident infections that can be used to measure progress towards elimination from cross sectional surveys. The study will involve a monthly household survey that includes serum collection from households within the catchment area of one rural health center. Additionally, passive case detection will be established at the rural health center to ensure all incident cases are captured. All household members over six months of age are eligible and will be invited to participate. The cohort study will begin in July 2018 and will collect data for two years. The two aims described will be assessed after the first year of data collection and are the basis for my dissertation project. This study is nested within a broader NIH funded study, the Southern and Central African International Center for Excellence in Malaria Research (ICEMR). The research site is part of the Macha Research Trust in Zambia, a well-established research unit with a strong relationship to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

PI Mentor: William Moss