2024 wrapped: reviewing the past year at RSTMH
As we reach the end of 2024, we want to share some of the key achievements and successes of RSTMH and highlight milestones within the wider global health and tropical medicine communities.
In May, we were delighted to receive confirmation from Buckingham Palace that His Majesty King Charles III will continue our Royal Patronage, taking up the role as Patron of RSTMH. This continues a long history dating back to the granting of the Society’s Royal Charter by His Majesty King George V in 1920.
This year, we also announced the results of our successful pitch to host the 22nd International Congress for Tropical Medicine and Malaria in 2028 in Liverpool, UK.
ICTMM 2028, as it will be known, will take place on 6-10 September 2028 at the ACC Liverpool. It will be the first ICTMM to be held in the UK since its inception in 1913. Read more about this announcement, including how to sign up to our dedicated mailing list here. If you would like to get involved as part of the Scientific Committee or if your organisation could contribute as a partner, sponsor or exhibitor, please email me at Tamar [dot] Ghosh [at] rstmh [dot] org.
Grants
This year, we again saw a record number of entries to our Early Career Grants Programme, receiving 2,828 applications. We are delighted to be awarding over 290 grants, compared with 251 in 2023. We are currently processing the final awards, when all of the winning projects get underway across the world. More information on the awarded studies can be found on our Grants page here.
We are very grateful this year for the continued support from our donor partners: the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), the International Alliance for the Control of Scabies (IACS), and The Journal of Comparative Pathology (JCPET). RSTMH are also funding four grants this year, exclusively to RSTMH members.
As in past years, a large number of high-quality applications could not be funded due to limited resources. These grants are life-changing for those starting out in their research careers across all areas of tropical medicine and global health, and may lead to improvements and innovations. If you or your organisation could support our Grants Programme next year, please email me at Tamar [dot] Ghosh [at] rstmh [dot] org.
This year, we delivered our first grant awardee workshop in Lagos, Nigeria, with 27 awardees from the West African region. This was a valuable opportunity to hear their thoughts about the process and programme and discuss how we can better support their careers moving forward. We look forward to hosting more of these next year.
Journals
This year was also a very successful one for our journals. During 2024, we received over 650 submissions to the RSTMH journals, Transactions of the Royal Society of Medicine and Hygiene (TRSTMH) and International Health (INTHEA). We curated article collections for several awareness days relevant to our work, including World TB Day, World Dengue Day, International Snakebite Awareness Day, and World Rabies Day. In April 2024, we published the second part of the supplement Mental Health, Stigma and Neglected Tropical Diseases (Part B), which was launched at an event hosted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on 24 April 2024.
We increased outreach efforts by delivering in-person and online publishing guidance sessions to members and Fellows, hosting webinars based on journal articles, and welcoming six new Associate Editors to our Editorial Boards.
We continued to work on the first of our two current Sightsavers supplements as part of our dissemination partnership, on the topic of onchocerciasis. Through partnerships like these, we continue to share global health news via our journals, webinars, newsletters and social media. If you have a project which could benefit from being showcased across a range of audiences, please contact our Managing Editor at Thomas [dot] Pinfield [at] rstmh [dot] org.
Meeting and events
This year, RSTMH delivered 27 meetings and events. Of these, 12 were in person and 15 online. We were pleased to see a 60% increase in people registering for them.
Highlights included our first Regional Meeting and Research in Progress West Africa meeting, and webinars on topics including leprosy, tuberculosis and chagas disease.
Our first Regional Meeting was delivered in July in Lagos, Nigeria. This one-day scientific meeting focused on some of the most important global health and tropical medicine challenges across the West Africa region, with the theme 'Charting West Africa's journey to resilient health systems: overcoming challenges, embracing innovations, and cultivating future health leaders'. Attendance and scientific content were exceptional, and we are very grateful for all support received from our networks.
Our Annual Meeting this year was on the theme 'Tropical Medicine and Global Health: Innovations and Challenges' with a focus on significant cross-cutting issues affecting many disease areas and health challenges. During the two days, topics covered included stigma; WASH; ethics; technology and climate change. It was fantastic to see so many members and Fellows in attendance and many new connections being made.
We are looking forward to delivering further successful events in 2025 and developing our meeting and events calendar while improving accessibility through holding more events outside of the UK, as well as supporting those early in their careers.
Members and Fellows
We are very grateful to all of our members and Fellows for their support of RSTMH, our vision, and our work this year. We were also thrilled to welcome all new members who joined us in 2024, from over 70 countries worldwide. Their participation strengthens our mission and our growing global community.
This year, we hosted a variety of online and in-person events for members and fellows, and we are delighted to see their networks continue to flourish. We announced five new recipients of the Presidents' Fund, which gives the opportunity to individuals, who may otherwise not be able to afford RSTMH membership, to benefit from the advantages that it has to offer. We look forward to supporting them in their global health and tropical medicine careers.
Governance
In October, Professor Jimmy Whitworth completed his term as President and we are grateful for all he helped us achieve this year. The role of President moved to Dr Wendy Harrison and Professor Margaret Gyapong as Joint Presidents, which is a first for RSTMH. We are delighted to have two leaders in global health from different regions, roles and disciplines overseeing RSTMH.
Professor Whitworth now becomes Past President, with Professor George Varghese taking up the role of President Elect. Simon Bush stood down from the Board after serving an incredible 10 years as a Trustee, along with Professor Bridget Wills, Dr Said Jongo and Professor Pramod Samantaray, whose terms finished in October. We are so grateful to them for all of their support.
We were delighted that four new Trustees joined the society this year: Dr Adam Roberts, Dr Boakye Boatin and Dr Christoper Parry and Professor Kathryn Maitland.
Medals and Awards
Every year, RSTMH gives out a number of medals and awards in recognition of excellence and success. The winner of this year’s Emerging Leaders Award was Dr Luria Leslie Founou, who was nominated by Saffiatou Darboe. This award recognises significant contributions in early leadership and service, including mentoring and other forms of capacity building, to the fields of tropical medicine and global health.
This year’s Chalmers Medal was awarded to Professor Taane Clark, who was nominated by Professor David Mabey. This medal is for those mid-career, and recognises researchers in tropical medicine or global health who demonstrate evidence of mentoring and professional development of junior investigators, and other forms of capacity building.
The Sir Rickard Christophers Medal was awarded this year to Professor Daniel Chandramohan, who was nominated by Professor Brian Greenwood. This medal recognises outstanding work in tropical medicine and hygiene, and evidence of practical and field applications.
The winner of this year’s Donald Mackay Medal was Professor Lorenz Von Seidlein, who was nominated by Professor Nick Day. This medal is for outstanding work in tropical health, especially relating to improvements in the health of rural or urban workers in the tropics. The medal is awarded in alternating years by RSTMH and by the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (ASTMH).
We also announced Zoe Raw, from the University of Bristol, as the winner of our 2023 Student Essay Prize. The essay answered the question ‘What is the most important emerging challenge for global health over the next 5 years and how could this be overcome?’ and the title of the winning essay was ‘Pandemic Planet: The Terrifying Ascent of Zoonotic Diseases in an Overpopulated, Warming World during the Anthropocene’.
Read more about this year’s medal and awards here.
Volunteers
Once again, this year we had incredible support from around 1,000 volunteers: our Board of Trustees, Committee Members, Global Assessors, Country and Student Ambassadors, Editorial Board Members, and reviewers for the journals all helped us to deliver so many activities in 2024
This year saw some changes to our Committees: we welcomed Professor Kathryn Maitland, Dr Christopher Parry and Dr Adam Roberts to the Grants and Awards Committee, and Dr Quudus Yusuff to the International Members Committee. Professor Margaret Gyapong took over as Chair of the International Members Committee and both Professor Gyapong and Dr Harrison joined the Finance and Audit Committee.
During 2024, 19 new Student Ambassadors joined our network, raising awareness of RSTMH throughout their institutions and beyond. They continue to be the instrumental link between students, institutions and RSTMH. We also welcomed 51 new Global Assessors who helped us with the quality control of our grants, travel scholarships and event abstract applications.
This year, we finalised our review of the Country Ambassador role, as it has been five years since it was established. The review helped us identify ways we could better support them in their role and ensure their views are heard and influence our work. In our journals, we welcomed six new Associate Editors to the Editorial Boards of Transactions and International Health.
The dedication and support of all our volunteers is invaluable, and we are incredible grateful for it.
Team changes
This year, we also welcomed new team members: Adam Leibowitz (Governance and Planning Manager), Greta Holmes (Grants Manager), and Jasmine Hughes (Team and Office Assistant) and Nell Dasso (Membership Manager). Meet the RSTMH team here.
Global health milestones
Outside of RSTMH, 2024 saw significant milestones in disease elimination. Within Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) this included: Chad eliminating human African trypanosomiasis as a public health problem; Jordan becoming the first country to receive WHO verification for eliminating leprosy; Brazil eliminating lymphatic filariasis as a public health problem; and the WHO validating the elimination of trachoma as a public health problem in Pakistan.
Elsewhere, this year saw the elimination of lymphatic filariasis as a public health problem in Timor-Leste; the elimination of trachoma as a public health problem in India; and Vietnam eliminating trachoma as a public health problem.
2024 saw several developments in malaria: 17 countries introduced the malaria vaccine, Egypt became malaria-free after a century-long battle and Cabo Verde joined the ranks of malaria-free countries. It also saw the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis in Belize, Jamaica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Namibia reached a key milestone towards elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and hepatitis B. Read more updates from the WHO here.
In September, global leaders met at the 79th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) High-Level Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), where they committed to a set of targets and actions, including reducing the estimated 4.95 million human deaths associated with bacterial antimicrobial resistance (AMR) annually by 10% by 2030. You can read more about the outcomes here.
However, also in 2024, the WHO published a report on tuberculosis (TB) revealing that approximately 8.2 million people were newly diagnosed with TB in 2023 – the highest number recorded since WHO began global TB monitoring in 1995. This represents a notable increase from 7.5 million reported in 2022, placing TB again as the leading infectious disease killer in 2023, surpassing COVID-19. Read more here.
As we look forward to 2025, the second full year of our current Strategy, we are planning our activities to achieve even more in global health and tropical medicine. We will share more about our ambitions at the beginning of the year, and in the meantime we wish good health and happiness to all our members, Fellows, partners and friends.
