Project helping prevent future pandemics wins global prize

A UCL-led project aiming to predict and manage the risk of diseases transmitting from animals to humans has scooped a £1m prize as part of the inaugural Trinity Challenge competition. The Sentinel Forecasting System, developed by UCL researchers in collaboration with partners in Nigeria, USA and the UK, will explore the emergence of new infectious diseases in West Africa, beginning with Lassa fever. The system will combine data from ecology, social science, genomics and epidemiology to provide real-time disease risk for haemorrhagic fevers, such as Lassa and Ebola. The Trinity Challenge was launched in September 2020 by England's former Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies, bringing about collaborations between the private, public, charitable and academic sectors to drive a step-change in using data and analytics for pandemic preparedness and recovery. Eight winners have been selected by a prestigious international panel of expert judges, out of 340 applications from 61 countries. Lassa is a virus usually passed to humans through exposure to food or household items contaminated by infected rats. It is endemic in West African countries including Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Togo and Nigeria.