Author response: Using parasite genetic and human mobility data to infer local and cross-border malaria connectivity in Southern Africa

Article Figures and data Abstract eLife digest Introduction Results Discussion Materials and methods Data availability References Decision letter Author response Article and author information Metrics Abstract Local and cross-border importation remain major challenges to malaria elimination and are difficult to measure using traditional surveillance data. To address this challenge, we systematically collected parasite genetic data and travel history from thousands of malaria cases across northeastern Namibia and estimated human mobility from mobile phone data. We observed strong fine-scale spatial structure in local parasite populations, providing positive evidence that the majority of cases were due to local transmission. This result was largely consistent with estimates from mobile phone and travel history data. However, genetic data identified more detailed and extensive evidence…