Modelling cholera

A mathematical model of disease cycles developed at the University of Michigan shows promise for predicting cholera outbreaks.

Theoretical ecologist Mercedes Pascual and her coworkers developed the model that can aid short-term forecasting of infectious diseases, such as cholera, and inform decisions about vaccination and other disease-prevention strategies.

In research done over the past seven years, Pascual and colleagues have found evidence that a phenomenon known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a major source of climate variability from year to year, influences cycles of cholera in Bangladesh. They also showed that the coupling between climate variability and cholera cycles has become stronger in recent decades.

Now, Pascual is examining the feasibility of using a model developed during that work as an early warning system.

"The question we asked was whether, using data from 1966 to 2000, we could have predicted cholera outbreaks over the past five years," said Pascual, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan.