Abstract
Mosquito-borne diseases pose some of the greatest challenges in public health, especially
in tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world. Efforts to control these diseases have
been underpinned by a theoretical framework developed for malaria by Ross and Macdonald,
including models, metrics for measuring transmission, and theory of control that
identifies key vulnerabilities in the transmission cycle. That framework, especially
Macdonald's formula for R0 and its entomological derivative,
vectorial capacity, are now used to study dynamics and design interventions for many
mosquito-borne diseases. A systematic review of 388 models published between 1970 and 2010
found that the vast majority adopted the Ross–Macdonald assumption of homogeneous
transmission in a well-mixed population. Studies comparing models and data question these
assumptions and point to the capacity to model heterogeneous, focal transmission as the
most important but relatively unexplored component in current theory. Fine-scale
heterogeneity causes transmission dynamics to be nonlinear, and poses problems for
modeling, epidemiology and measurement. Novel mathematical approaches show how
heterogeneity arises from the biology and the landscape on which the processes of mosquito
biting and pathogen transmission unfold. Emerging theory focuses attention on the
ecological and social context for mosquito blood feeding, the movement of both hosts and
mosquitoes, and the relevant spatial scales for measuring transmission and for modeling
dynamics and control.
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