University of Warwick researchers have been awarded $3.5 million to continue their crucial research supporting efforts to eliminate sleeping sickness in West and Central Africa.
Sleeping sickness, also known as gambiense Human African Trypanosomiasis (gHAT), is a parasitic disease transmitted by tsetse fly. It is a neglected tropical disease that disproportionately affects some of the poorest and most remote populations in West and Central Africa. Left untreated, it is almost always fatal, making elimination efforts a top priority for improving global health.
The HAT Modelling and Economic Predictions for Policy (HAT MEPP) project, has been pivotal in supporting national control programs across multiple countries. Since 2018, the initiative has received funding support from the Gates Foundation and this latest round of funding ensures the project's continuation for an additional four years, extending its scope until August 2028.
Professor Kat Rock, Mathematics Department, University of Warwick has led this project from the beginning and said: "This funding is a testament to the success of our partnerships with the national programmes and their partners. We are proud to be able to continue to contribute to the global effort to eliminate sleeping sickness and improve the lives of those affected by this devastating disease.
"However, as case numbers continue to decline, we are encountering new and increasingly complex challenges. These include how to confidently confirm the elimination of the disease in challenging locations, determining what measures are needed to detect and respond swiftly to any potential resurgence and understanding the risk of re-importation from countries with limited disease control activities."
The newly secured funding will enable the team to expand their work into more countries affected by sleeping sickness whilst bolstering existing collaborations with national control programs in Uganda, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Through their existing partnerships, HAT MEPP's expert guidance has been provided on the most cost-effective approaches for achieving disease elimination, evaluating the impact of specific control measures, and identifying priority regions for control activities.
The HAT MEPP team have been working closely with Dr Erick Miaka, director of the DRC's National Sleeping Sickness Control Programme, who has been at the forefront of efforts to combat this fatal, yet treatable, disease. Reflecting on progress made and the challenges ahead for the DRC, which has the highest global prevalence of sleeping sickness.
Dr Erick Miaka, Director of the DRC's National Sleeping Sickness Control Programme remarked: "As we move towards eliminating sleeping sickness in the DRC, we face a double-edged sword. Cases have rapidly declined with globally coordinated efforts in the last two decades, but in parallel, so has people's awareness of the disease. As we try to mop up the remaining pockets of infection, we find that as fewer people in the community know about the disease, fewer people are willing to participate in screening activities.
"There is also the challenge that healthcare workers might have never seen a patient with sleeping sickness, and in its initial stages, it is difficult to distinguish from other more common diseases like malaria. With so few cases now being found, when they do present, patients are often misdiagnosed.
"We are now entering a new and critical stage in our elimination efforts, and we must rally to ensure our extraordinary gains are maintained and that we work towards achieving elimination. For this to happen, we need to pinpoint the remaining pockets of infection, understand the most effective strategies to use, and ensure we have the resources available where and when we need them. This is where we see HAT MEPP's mathematical modelling being critical for guiding the decisions of the national programme."
Recognising that interpreting the vast amounts of data generated by HAT MEPP's models can be challenging, the team have also developed an interactive platform that allows users to freely explore modelled outputs. This platform, accessible on the HAT MEPP website, provides free access to some of the team's most recent analyses, making the outputs widely available.
This new round of funding will see the platform expanding to integrate advancements in artificial intelligence and large language models (LLMs) to enhance its functionality. The integration of LLMs will be carefully guided by input from prospective users, ensuring it remains user-centric and enhances the interactive platform's capabilities, to empower countries with advanced, user-friendly tools for data analysis and decision-making.
Looking beyond the lifespan of the project, the team are also considering the project's long-term legacy by exploring ways to enable national programmes to independently assess incoming data with reduced reliance on expert modellers. The funding will also facilitate collaborations with new countries, ensuring that the project's impact reaches even more communities at risk.
