The use of Mathematical models in monitoring the risk of re-emerging malaria in Romania

Abstract

Malaria, considered to be the oldest disease on earth, has a high annual mortality rate and represents a global threat. Being transmitted by mosquitoes, this disease is expanding its spatial range, gradually manifesting itself in previously unaffected areas and reappearing in areas where it was eradicated in the past. With mosquitoes – poikilothermic arthropods – as its definitive host, the development of the Plasmodium protozoan depends entirely on the environmental temperature. Thus, predictions of mosquito population development and pathogen evolution within vectors, in contrast to climate change, are becoming a necessity, especially for European countries, which are currently free of many of the targeted diseases, especially malaria, with only imported cases remaining. The climatologic analysis highlighted that in 2023 in the Danube Delta area cumulative temperaturehumidity conditions for malaria infection have been met. From the 13th of May to the 30th of September infection with Plasmodium vivax was possible and from the 9 th of June to the 30th of September infection with Plasmodium falciparum was likely. We estimate that the periods in which mosquitoes can multiply in the Danube Delta will increase by 2 weeks in next 50 years, in the context of climate change.