The Aedes mosquito distribution map app

A web-based solution

‘Aedes distribution maps’ is a prototype web-based application written in R Shiny to explore Africa-specific habitat suitability maps for Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti mosquitos, alongside known species occurrence records.

Aedes distribution maps allows the visualisation of habitat suitability maps for A. aegypti and Ae. albopictus within Africa. These maps include mean habitat suitability layers derived from existing published maps and associated standard deviation. Visualisation is dependent on the user’s criteria, with users selecting the species of interest, country, and first-level administrative region to visualise. Users may download the data at the country or administrative region level in GeoTiff format. Additionally, users can visualise a point-map of known Aedes albopictus occurrence records within Africa and download this data in a comma-separated value (.csv) file for data analysis/visualisation. Known species occurrence records were obtained from published literature and are described fully in Longbottom et al. 2023.

The Aedes app

This prototype app aims to demonstrate how a web-interface can be used to facilitate the viewing and user-submission of new species occurrence records for Ae. albopictus. After vetting and approval, new Ae. albopictus data uploaded by users will be visible to others within the web-interface. Providing a contemporary and comprehensive database of known Ae.albopictus detection locations will allow for real-time monitoring and response to this invasive species of public health importance.

Access to the ‘Aedes distribution maps’ prototype web-app can be found here.

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Lancet Global Health

Joshua Longbottom, Abel W Walekhwa, Victor Mwingira, Oliver Kijanga, Furaha Mramba, Jennifer S Lord. Aedes albopictus invasion across Africa: the time is now for cross-country collaboration and control,2023, ISSN 2214-109X, https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(23)00046-3.

Any questions, comments, or addition species occurrence data can be directed to the corresponding author.