Thanks to generous support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, RSTMH is offering a number of travel scholarships for young investigators from the African continent to attend and present at its forthcoming three-day meeting ‘Global Health Challenges 2010 and beyond’.

We are particularly keen to offer travel scholarships to young investigators who do not already have links with northern institutions.

The maximum value of this travel scholarship is £2,000; allowable expenses include economy travel, visas, and the meeting registration fee of £449.

This round is now closed.

Please click here for regulations and an application form

Fellowship subscriptions are now due; if you have not yet paid your 2010-2011 subscription by standing order or other means of payment, please renew your fellowship subscription before 31 March 2010 to continue to receive fellowship benefits including;  

• Our peer-reviewed journals, Transactions and International Health.
• Electronic access to additional material including chapters from Manson’s Tropical Diseases and a link to The Lancet Global Health Network which itself includes links to Lancet content.
• A calendar of scientific and academic meetings across the UK throughout the year, and preferential delegate rates at our biennial three-day meeting (next meeting September 2010).
• An educational grants programme and a range of bursaries.

Our 2010 fellowship rates are:

You can pay your subscription online here. If you haven’t already activated your online access, you will need to follow these instructions first. 

Alternatively you can pay by: 

• Bank Transfer (bank charges to be paid at source)
  NatWest 1 Cavendish Square, London W1A 4NU
  Account number 24814237 Sort code 60 40 02
  SWIFT NWBK GB 2L
  IBAN GB81 NWBK 6040 0224 8142 37 
• Standing order: please download and complete this form 
• Credit card: please download and complete this form 
• Cheque made payable to RSTMH 
• Cash: please visit the RSTMH offices at 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP between the hours of 9-5, Monday to Friday 

Whichever way you choose to pay your fellowship subscription, please consider making a donation to the RSTMH Centenary Fund to support young research workers from developing countries. If you are a UK tax-payer you will also be able to Gift Aid your donation. A Gift Aid form is available here.

Many thanks in advance and very best wishes,

Fellowship Administrator

RSTMH is delighted to support the LSHTM 1st Annual Student Symposium on Global Health which is to be held in the Manson Lecture Theatre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on July 1st 2010.

Organised by current LSHTM students, this symposium provides an opportunity for students involved in all aspects of global health research to present their original work through short oral presentations. The programme will conclude with a plenary lecture by Professor David Heymann (LSHTM, former Assistant Director General of the World Health Organisation).

The programme of oral presentations has now been finalised and can be found here

Non-LSHTM delegates will need to register in advance for security purposes.  Please e-mail GHS@lshtm.ac.uk   Spaces are limited and available on a first come, first served basis.

For further details visit http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/events/globalhealthsymposium/

MSF are holding a Scientific Day on 02 July at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK.

The Scientific Day is an international forum showcasing the work and research of MSF and some of its partners around the world. All types of research are considered, including surveys, descriptive programme evaluations, drug trials, and literature reviews. Submissions that highlight MSF’s humanitarian work and medical care in emergencies are particularly encouraged. MSF are keen for presentations that highlight the lessons learned in such environments, which can have a direct impact on quality of medical assistance as well as influence research agendas and policies.

The deadline for submitting abstracts is Wednesday 31 March. There is very limited flexibility on this deadline however if you have an idea but data collection/analysis is still in progress then please still submit, guaranteeing when your final version will be ready.

Abstracts should be around 350 words and in the format of Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion; or in a 'Case study' format - Introduction, Description [eg, of a programme], Analysis, Lessons learned, Discussion. See here for more specific guidance.

The Medical Research Council has launched a new scheme to support African Research Leaders. This is a highly prestigious award, jointly funded by the MRC and the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID), for non-clinical and clinical researchers of exceptional ability. The aim of the scheme is to strengthen research leadership and capacity in sub-Saharan Africa, by attracting and retaining researchers of high ability. The scheme will be launched as a pilot in the first instance, aiming to award support for two or three Research Leaders.

For further details please click here.

RSTMH is delighted to announce the launch of its 2010 Centenary Scholarships grants round. This programme is open to practitioners and research scientists living and working in developing countries who wish to improve their clinical and laboratory skills.

Building on the success of the 2008 and 2009 rounds, RSTMH will again offer two rounds per year with a view to disbursing up to £100,000 each June and December.

Chief Executive Gerri McHugh, said "RSTMH is now in the second year of a five-year programme of strategic investment in scientists and clinical staff in the poorest parts of the world where millions of people die unnecessarily each year from diseases that could be readily treated or prevented. Since the launch of the Centenary Scholarships programme in 2008 we have disbursed nearly £180,000 across twelve projects and will offer two rounds again this year and hope that this flexibility will lead to a large number of high-calibre applications from our colleagues overseas."

Full details of the Centenary Scholarships can be found here.

Fellows are invited to make nominations for three Society medals to be awarded in 2010

The Manson Medal is awarded triennially. It is the Society's highest mark of distinction, made to the person whose contribution to any branch of tropical medicine or hygiene is considered by Council to merit the honour most.

The Chalmers Medal is awarded each year in recognition of research contributing to the knowledge of tropical medicine or tropical hygiene.  Only persons under the age of 46 on 1 June of the year of award are eligible for this award.

The Donald Mackay Medal is awarded for outstanding work in tropical health, especially relating to improvement in the health of rural or urban workers in the tropics. Preference is given to medically qualified candidates, but those in other disciplines are eligible. RSTMH will award this medal in 2010 and ASTMH in 2011.

Nominations for medals may be made by any Fellow of the Society on forms available from the Society (info@rstmh.org) or downloaded from here.

Completed forms should be returned to info@rstmh.org by 28 February 2010.

We are pleased to announce that the RSTMH Fellow portal is active on our website.

You can use this portal to renew your subscription, access our journals Transactions and International Health as well as to reserve a place at forthcoming meetings. To activate your access, please follow the instructions here.

Report by Lara Payne, Imperial College School of Medicine and Joseph Fitchett, Royal Society of Medicine Students Group.

On 28 November 2009 we collaborated to arrange the 'Spotlight on Neglected Tropical Diseases' conference held at the Royal Society of Medicine. We were delighted that 150 delegates attended the event; the lecture theatre was packed to full capacity and was attended by delegates from as far afield as Belfast and Dundee.

RSTMH sponsored the meeting and in addition offered one year's free student Fellowship for all student delegates. As a result we now welcome 114 new student Fellows to the Society.

Dr Lorenzo Savioli (Director, Department of Control of NTDs, WHO) opened the day with an introduction to the concept of NTDs focusing on the current areas where progress is needed as well as examples of some successful initiatives.

Professor Simon Croft (LSHTM) and Professor Sue Welburn (Centre for Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh) highlighted new methods being used to improve prospects for the control of NTDs. Croft illustrated how simultaneous drug development can be implemented as a tool for rapid drug discovery while Welburn explained how zoonotic hosts are used in the treatment and control of human diseases.

The progress made in fields such as lymphatic filariasis was highlighted by Professor David Molyneux (LSTM) and Professor Moses Bockarie (Director, Centre for Neglected Tropical Diseases, LSTM). Professor Molyneux also stressed the importance of public health programme integration as well as rational targets for research that can be utilised in areas with low economic capacity.

Professor Diana Lockwood (LSHTM, HTD) and Dr Ingrid Muller (Imperial College London) advised caution with regards to rash statements and elimination targets.  They went on to discuss the on-going challenges posed by diseases such as leprosy and leishmaniasis.

Issues surrounding schistosomiasis, such as the need for regular treatment, and the importance of the new WHO treatment dose pole in assisting these public health programmes, were examined by Professor Alan Fenwick (Director, Schistosomiasis Control Initiative).

The environmental aspects involved in disease were explored by Dr Hannah Kuper (LSHTM) and Professor Sandy Cairncross (LSHTM). Trachoma and Guinea Worm were used as examples to demonstrate how a targeted approach has led to the decline of these diseases. Using Guinea Worm as an example, Professor Cairncross told the moving story of how the strength of community health programmes using practical recommendations have led to a near eradication of the disease and given other programmes a similar goal to work towards.

At the end of the meeting Professor Geoffrey Pasvol (Wellcome Centre for Tropical Medicine, Imperial College London) hosted a panel discussion with the audience. It was inspirational to see how delegates were so enthused by all the talks and there was a real feeling that students were encouraged by their peers to go out and make a difference in the field of NTDs.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the speakers who were the stars of this event and who made this day so successful.

We would also like to thank RSTMH and its CEO Gerri McHugh, whose generous offer encouraged the next generation of RSTMH members to get involved in the Society.

We wish success to those striving to alleviate the burden of NTDs and hope to encourage more activists to this cause for the benefit of those who are most in need.

Lara Payne (Chair, ICSMSU TropMed) and Joseph Fitchett (Principal Student, RSM Students Group).

A DfID-funded International Health Links Centre (IHLC) is being developed at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

The primary role of the IHLC is to act as a ‘one-stop-shop’ Resource Centre providing independent advice and guidance to potential developers of links and existing links on the technical and administrative aspects of establishing and maintaining links. With a dedicated ‘Links Centre’ open access website, a library of resources will be available which is appropriate to both international users and NHS organisations in the UK, and which will assist them in developing their link. 

In addition, the IHLC will signpost international and UK partners to developing country health plans and to tools that can help them evaluate the impact of their work. It will also act as a signpost to appropriate agencies for health professionals interested in voluntary or humanitarian work. The first phase of the project, namely the initial development of the website www.ihlc.org.uk is now complete. 

Dr Timothy O’Dempsey, Director of the IHLC said ‘We want to ensure that the IHLC is useful to all those interested in international health links and we are keen to encourage wide participation in developing this resource. Please spread the word to interested colleagues in the UK and internationally and encourage them to visit the IHLC website, join our subscription list and get involved in the development of the IHLC.

Over the next two months we are holding a ‘stakeholder consultation’ following which we will expand the functionality of the website to include a ‘Members Area’ and additional features recommended by participants in the consultation.

Among other features, we are developing a Directory of International Health Links. Any individual or institution currently involved in an international health link can be included in the directory; simply e-mail your web details and a brief paragraph (up to 200 words) describing the link to ihlc@liv.ac.uk ‘