Integrated spatial transmission modelling to support targeted surveillance and intervention strategies for Guinea worm eradication

About the project

About the Project Guinea worm eradication is at a historic threshold. If achieved, dracunculiasis would become only the second human disease ever eradicated, after smallpox. Decades of surveillance, behaviour change and water-safety interventions have reduced Guinea worm from millions of human cases per year in the 1980s to only a handful of recent cases. However, the final stages of eradication are biologically and operationally complex. Transmission in dogs, cats and wildlife, persistent cross-border foci, and uncertainty over undetected infection create urgent questions for programme strategy. This PhD will develop mathematical and statistical models to support the final stages of Guinea worm eradication. The student will work with the Royal Veterinary College and The Carter Center’s Guinea Worm Eradication Program to ask: where might transmission still be occurring, how does infection move between places and hosts, and how should surveillance and interventions be targeted as incidence declines? The project will build on DEACON, an existing deterministic and individual-based modelling framework for domestic canine Guinea worm transmission. Previous work with DEACON has explored the potential impact of interventions such as Abate® larvicide application and tethering of dogs. This studentship will extend that work into a flexible spatial decision-support framework that can incorporate existing and emerging Carter Center evidence, including surveillance data, geospatial risk outputs, genomic evidence, intervention data and operational programme knowledge. The precise scientific questions and case-study settings will be refined with The Carter Center as new evidence and programme priorities emerge. However, the broad aims are to: extend DEACON to represent spatially structured Guinea worm transmission across relevant programmatic settings; integrate surveillance, genomic and geospatial evidence to estimate spatial heterogeneity in transmission intensity, surveillance sensitivity, host contributions and reintroduction risk; evaluate targeted intervention strategies, potentially including diagnostic-led “test-and-tether” approaches, targeted Abate® application, reduced proactive tethering and plausible future therapeutic scenarios; produce decision-support outputs that help The Carter Center and national programmes prioritise surveillance, interpret emerging data streams and plan targeted intervention strategies for the final stages of eradication. The student will be based primarily at the Royal Veterinary College in London and embedded within the RVC Global Centre for Neglected Tropical Disease Research. They will receive training in infectious disease modelling, Bayesian inference, spatial epidemiology, One Health, reproducible computational workflows and communication of uncertainty to non-specialist audiences. Additional formal training may include relevant RVC MSc Veterinary Epidemiology modules, LSHTM short courses in infectious disease modelling, and LIDo training in interdisciplinary bioscience and industry engagement. A central feature of the studentship is the iCASE partnership with The Carter Center. The student will undertake an in-person placement of at least three months with The Carter Center, expected to occur in Year 2, providing exposure to operational eradication science, programme data systems, decision-making processes and interdisciplinary research coordination. During the placement, the student will work with Carter Center supervisors and programme staff to refine operational modelling questions, interpret surveillance/geospatial/genomic/diagnostic evidence, and agree priority analyses for the remainder of the PhD. This project would suit a student interested in infectious disease modelling, spatial epidemiology, neglected tropical diseases, One Health, global health, quantitative biology or data-driven decision support. Strong quantitative skills are desirable, but applicants do not need to have worked on Guinea worm before. The student will develop transferable skills in mathematical modelling, statistical inference, spatial analysis, reproducible coding, interdisciplinary collaboration and communication of scientific evidence for real-world disease-eradication decision-making.

Research areas