Manuela Runge

Manuela Runge
Verified
Manuela verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
Verified
Manuela verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
Northwestern University | NU

PhD
Infectious Disease Epidemiologist | Malaria Modeler

About

32
Publications
4,179
Reads
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373
Citations
Additional affiliations
January 2020 - present
Northwestern University
Position
  • PostDoc Position
Description
  • https://www.numalariamodeling.org/
September 2023 - present
MM Global Health Consulting
Position
  • Senior Associate
March 2016 - August 2016
Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute
Position
  • Research Assistant
Education
September 2016 - November 2019
Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute
Field of study
  • Malaria Epidemiology and Modelling
August 2014 - February 2016
March 2011 - February 2014
HAW Hamburg
Field of study
  • Health Sciences

Publications

Publications (32)
Article
Full-text available
Vaccine effectiveness (VE) studies provide real-world evidence to monitor vaccine performance and inform policy. The WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean supported a regional study to assess the VE of COVID-19 vaccines against different clinical outcomes in four countries between June 2021 and August 2023. Health worker cohort studies...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background In the context of high malaria burden yet limited resources, Guinea's national malaria program adopted an innovative subnational tailoring (SNT) approach, including engagement of stakeholders, data review, and data analytics, to update their malaria operational plan for 2024-2026 and identify the most appropriate interventions for each d...
Article
Full-text available
Background Decision-makers impose COVID-19 mitigations based on public health indicators such as reported cases, which are sensitive to fluctuations in supply and demand for diagnostic testing, and hospital admissions, which lag infections by up to two weeks. Imposing mitigations too early has unnecessary economic costs while imposing too late lead...
Article
Full-text available
Background For their 2021–2025 National Malaria Strategic Plan (NMSP), Nigeria’s National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP), in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO), developed a targeted approach to intervention deployment at the local government area (LGA) level as part of the High Burden to High Impact response. Mathematical mo...
Article
Full-text available
Background: A recent WHO recommendation for perennial malaria chemoprevention (PMC) encourages countries to adapt dose timing and number to local conditions. However, knowledge gaps on the epidemiological impact of PMC and possible combination with the malaria vaccine RTS,S hinder informed policy decisions in countries where malaria burden in youn...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background: A recent WHO recommendation for perennial malaria chemoprevention (PMC) encourages countries to adapt dose timing and number to local conditions. However, knowledge gaps on the epidemiological impact of PMC and possible combination with the malaria vaccine RTS,S hinder informed policy decisions in countries where malaria burden in young...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background For their 2021 – 2025 National Malaria Strategic Plan (NMSP), Nigeria’s National Malaria Elimination Program (NMEP), in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO), developed a targeted approach to intervention deployment at the local government area (LGA) level as part of the High Burden to High Impact response. Mathematical mo...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background Decision-makers impose COVID-19 mitigations based on public health indicators such as reported cases, which are sensitive to fluctuations in supply and demand for diagnostic testing, and hospital admissions, which lag infections by up to two weeks. Imposing mitigations too early has unnecessary economic costs, while imposing too late lea...
Article
Full-text available
In non-pharmaceutical management of COVID-19, occupancy of intensive care units (ICU) is often used as an indicator to inform when to intensify mitigation and thus reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission, strain on ICUs, and deaths. However, ICU occupancy thresholds at which action should be taken are often selected arbitrarily. We propose a quantitative ap...
Article
Full-text available
Background To accelerate progress against malaria in high burden countries, a strategic reorientation of resources at the sub-national level is needed. This paper describes how mathematical modelling was used in mainland Tanzania to support the strategic revision that followed the mid-term review of the 2015–2020 national malaria strategic plan (NM...
Article
Full-text available
Following publication of the original article [1], it was brought to the authors’ attention that a word was missing from the first sentence of the Abstract, with the result that the meaning was altered. This first sentence used to read "Larviciding against malaria vectors in Africa has been limited to indoor residual spraying and insecticide treate...
Article
Full-text available
Background Larviciding against malaria vectors in Africa has been limited to indoor residual spraying and insecticide-treated nets, but is increasingly being considered by some countries as a complementary strategy. However, despite progress towards improved larvicides and new tools for mapping or treating mosquito-breeding sites, little is known a...
Preprint
Full-text available
In managing COVID-19 with non-pharmaceutical interventions, occupancy of intensive care units (ICU) is often used as an indicator to inform when to intensify mitigation and thus reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission, strain on ICUs, and deaths. However, ICU occupancy thresholds at which action should be taken are often selected arbitrarily. We propose a q...
Article
Full-text available
Background Availability of SARS-CoV-2 testing in the United States (U.S.) has fluctuated through the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, including in the U.S. state of Illinois. Despite substantial ramp-up in test volume, access to SARS-CoV-2 testing remains limited, heterogeneous, and insufficient to control spread. Methods We compared SARS-CoV-2 te...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background Availability of SARS-CoV-2 testing in the United States (U.S.) has fluctuated through the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, including in the U.S. state of Illinois. Despite substantial ramp-up in test volume, access to SARS-CoV-2 testing remains limited, heterogeneous, and insufficient to control spread. Methods We compared SARS-CoV-2 tes...
Article
Full-text available
In malaria-endemic countries, prioritizing intervention deployment to areas that need the most attention is crucial to ensure continued progress. Global and national policy makers increasingly rely on epidemiological data and mathematical modelling to help optimize health decisions at the sub-national level. The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)...
Article
Full-text available
We demonstrate the ability of statistical data assimilation (SDA) to identify the measurements required for accurate state and parameter estimation in an epidemiological model for the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19. Our context is an effort to inform policy regarding social behavior, to mitigate strain on hospital capacity. The model unknowns a...
Preprint
Full-text available
We demonstrate the ability of statistical data assimilation to identify the measurements required for accurate state and parameter estimation in an epidemiological model for the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19. Our context is an effort to inform policy regarding social behavior, to mitigate strain on hospital capacity. The model unknowns are tak...
Article
Full-text available
Abstract Background Recent malaria control efforts in mainland Tanzania have led to progressive changes in the prevalence of malaria infection in children, from 18.1% (2008) to 7.3% (2017). As the landscape of malaria transmission changes, a sub-national stratification becomes crucial for optimized cost-effective implementation of interventions. Th...
Article
Full-text available
Background: More than ever, it is crucial to make the best use of existing country data, and analytical tools for developing malaria control strategies as the heterogeneity in malaria risk within countries is increasing, and the available malaria control tools are expanding while large funding gaps exist. Global and local policymakers, as well as...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction The decision-making process for malaria control and elimination strategies has become more challenging. Interventions need to be targeted at council level to allow for changing malaria epidemiology and an increase in the number of possible interventions. Models of malaria dynamics can support this process by simulating potential impact...
Poster
An funestus and An arabiensis are dominant malaria vectors with An funestus contributing most to transmission despite low abundance. Fixed breeding sites and high anthrophily make An funestus a optimal target for vector control and targeted larval source management might be a useful tool to reduce the species. Modelling was used to assess the impac...
Article
Full-text available
Background: With increasing spatial heterogeneity of malaria transmission and a shift of the disease burden towards older children and adults, pregnant women attending antenatal care (ANC) have been proposed as a pragmatic sentinel population for malaria surveillance. However, the representativeness of routine ANC malaria test-positivity and its r...
Article
Full-text available
Abstract Background A nationwide, school, malaria survey was implemented to assess the risk factors of malaria prevalence and bed net use among primary school children in mainland Tanzania. This allowed the mapping of malaria prevalence at council level and assessment of malaria risk factors among school children. Methods A cross-sectional, school,...
Poster
Large scale deployment of larviciding is being re-considered as complementary intervention to insecticide treated bed nets and indoor residual spraying. However not much is known about the effects of different deployment regimens on malaria transmission. In this modelling study, we explored a wide range of deployment variables,to define their relat...
Presentation
National Malaria Control Programs (NMCPs) are tasked with identifying the most efficient intervention packages and their optimal deployment strategies. Mathematical models can provide guidance in this process by predicting the impact of potential intervention packages in different settings. Tanzania is currently re-defining the national malaria str...

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