Rift Valley fever (RVF) epidemics in East Africa follow unusually heavy rains, which flood mosquito breeding sites. The RVF Early Warning Platform is a VBDModNet research project that turns daily satellite weather into an early signal of unusual mosquito seasons.
The platform combines CHIRPS satellite rainfall and NASA POWER temperature, a weather-driven model of floodwater Aedes and Culex mosquitoes built on Mweya et al. (2014, PLoS ONE 9: e108430), and anomaly detectors that learn each site's normal seasons. It is being developed for a planned pilot in Ngorongoro District, Tanzania, subject to agreements with authorities and ethics approval.
Research tool. The platform has been tested on simulated data and historical weather only and is not yet validated in the field. Its software is open source (GPL-3.0) on Zenodo, and papers describing it are under peer review.
Interested in collaboration, pilot sites or student projects? Contact Dr Clement N. Mweya at mweya.clement@udsm.ac.tz.