Following a previous meeting in 2018, Kat Rock met with Bill Gates (albeit virtually) again in August to present her research group’s modelling results on African sleeping sickness. Kat heads the HAT MEPP group, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which uses data-driven insights to support local decision making and planning in an effort to eliminate sleeping sickness in a number of countries in Africa. The HAT MEPP group consists of modellers and health economists from both the University of Warwick and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute.

Throughout June and July the HAT MEPP group held a series of virtual meetings with collaborators, stakeholders and partners to re-align the group’s project goals with the HAT communities current priorities. The meetings, which were conducted in both French and English, proved to be a great success with many lively and informative discussions and contributions being made throughout each of the sessions. The meeting, which provided HAT MEPP’s collaborators with the opportunity to influence the direction of the modelling work, will ensure that their future research addresses the HAT community’s most pressing questions.

We are pleased to announce that Christopher Davis, a former member of HAT MEPP and a current member of SBIDER, was awarded a Thesis Prize by the Faculty of Mathematics in July. His PhD, supervised by both Kat Rock and Matt Keeling, focused on developing a stochastic mathematical model for gambiense human African trypanosomiasis (gHAT) infection dynamics at the village level. Well done Chris!