The Ifakara Health Institute (IHI), on behalf of the VectorGrid-Africa consortium, has received a US$1.5 million grant from Coefficient Giving. Over the next three years, the funding will help the network make its long-term surveillance data easier to combine, manage and use in public health decisions.

VectorGrid-Africa is establishing a network of permanent observatories that track mosquitoes, the pathogens they carry and the environmental conditions that influence disease transmission. Its first observatory nodes are being developed in Tanzania, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Madagascar. The consortium is coordinated by the University of Glasgow, with scientific leadership from IHI.

Mosquito-borne diseases remain a major public health threat. The World Health Organization estimates that vector-borne diseases cause more than 700,000 deaths each year. Malaria alone caused an estimated 282 million cases and 610,000 deaths in 2024, with the WHO African Region carrying the greatest burden. Climate change, land-use change, rapid urbanization and the spread of invasive mosquito species are altering disease risks, making long-term surveillance increasingly important.

Dr Joel Odero, Principal Investigator for the new grant and Technical Director of VectorGrid-Africa, said:

“Our goal is to ensure that VectorGrid-Africa’s data are useful to the people responsible for preventing and responding to outbreaks. This grant will help us link mosquito surveillance with routine health data and build systems that countries can sustain and use.”

What the grant will support

The grant will support work in three critical areas:

• Work with ministries, national programs, communities and regional partners to identify priority uses for the data and plan how each country can sustain its observatory.

• Link selected, approved health indicators with data on mosquitoes, pathogens, climate and the environment, using existing national systems wherever possible.

• Build secure, country-controlled systems to curate, protect and responsibly share the network's long-term data.

The funding will also support an expansion framework that sets out how future countries will be prioritized, assesses whether prospective partners are ready to join and begins discussions with scientists, institutions and public health authorities.

Prof Fredros Okumu, the Founding Director of VectorGrid-Africa and a professor of Vector Biology at the University of Glasgow, said:

“We established VectorGrid-Africa because African countries need permanent systems for tracking mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit. This grant will support country-led planning, strengthen national data systems and help us develop a practical pathway for expansion.”

Building a wider partnership 

The initiative is supported by national health programs and regional and technical partners including Applied Health Analytics for Delivery & Innovation (AHADI), WHO-Regional Office for Africa, East Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC), Center for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis (CEMA), and African Conversations Initiative. Together, these partnerships will strengthen country ownership, health-data integration, data stewardship, stakeholder engagement and the use of surveillance evidence for public-health action.

Funding acknowledgement

This work is supported in part by grant number GV673609138 from Coefficient Giving. Coefficient Giving is a philanthropic advisor and funder. Its mission is to help others as much as it can with its available resources.