Warwick has been awarded over £5 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to be a part of the global effort to reduce the burden of infectious diseases amongst the poorest billion in the world.

The focus of the grant will be neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), a diverse group of infections which thrive mainly among the poorest populations of the world. These NTDs perpetuate the cycle of poverty and cause long-term suffering to millions. In recent years there has been a huge international investment to prevent additional morbidity through the control and elimination of many of these diseases and the World Health Organization has set ambitious targets for eliminating much of the burden of these diseases by 2020.

This is a large international effort, with teams across the UK, USA and Australia. The gathering of this global team is a unique effort with the goal of improving the health of the poorest populations in the world.

Dr Deirdre Hollingsworth, who is leading the consortium from the School of Life Sciences and the Mathematics Institute, said:

It is fantastic to be involved with such an exciting and worthwhile project that gives the international modelling community the opportunity to demonstrate its expertise and commitment to NTDs. There are significant scientific challenges to producing quantitative frameworks that can support the effort to control NTDs but through this unique partnership we will be ready for them.”

The consortium has been commissioned to review all current data within various models to compare and evaluate the most effective changes that can be made to the global programme to encourage greater likelihood for success by 2020. By using multiple modelling approaches the consortium will ensure that the advice given is based on the best quality science, and has been robustly tested.

Find out more about the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases and their END7 campaign.