District-level malaria surge forecasting and early warning for Uganda's 146 districts, using DHIS2 HMIS 033b surveillance, CHIRPS rainfall and ERA5-Land climate data. MSc research proof-of-concept.
Uganda Malaria Early Warning System
District-Level Malaria Surge Prediction and Early Warning Using Climate Data in Uganda
An MSc research proof-of-concept integrating routine HMIS surveillance, satellite-derived
climate predictors and validated machine-learning models into an auditable early-warning dashboard.
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## Overview
This system turns two routinely available data streams — weekly DHIS2 malaria surveillance
and satellite-derived climate data — into forward-looking district risk information for all
**146 districts and cities in Uganda**.
For every district it produces:
- **Case forecasts** at 4, 8 and 12 weeks ahead, from a Random Forest model validated on six
years of national data;
- **A surge warning** against a district- and season-specific epidemic threshold, so a "high"
week in Kampala is judged by Kampala's own seasonal baseline;
- **A risk classification** rendered on a national choropleth map and a searchable district table;
- **The evidence behind each number** — validation metrics, feature importance, data-quality
coverage and threshold logic are all exposed in the interface rather than hidden in the model.
At the four-week horizon the model detects **73% of surge weeks** and cuts forecast error by
**30% relative to the naive benchmark** that current practice most closely resembles. Uganda's
districts presently build endemic channels manually in Excel, with no climate input and no
forecast; this system automates that baseline and extends it three months ahead.
The analytical workflow is auditable in source and protected by automated tests and a
deterministic SHA-256 integrity fingerprint over the published forecasts. Complete result
reproduction additionally requires the governed surveillance data and production artifacts,
which cannot be redistributed in this public repository.
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## Table of contents
- 1. Research context
- 2. Contribution
- 3. Data sources
- 4. Methodology
- 5. Results
- 6. System architecture
- 7. App …