Bill Gates challenges UK students to come up with innovative solutions to disease challenge

Run by the British Science Association (BSA), the Youth Grand Challenges is aimed at students aged 11 to 19 with rewards on offer for the best projects.

This year’s theme is infectious diseases and students are being asked to explore unsolved scientific challenges that could lead to “significant advances in terms of preventing, treating and curing diseases prevalent in developing countries”.

Part of this includes a focus on mosquito-borne diseases, identifying ways of improving sanitation in developing countries, or designing better transportation devices for delicate medicines such as vaccines.

Infectious diseases remain one of the leading causes of death worldwide and they disproportionately affect developing countries. Almost one-third of deaths in developing countries are caused by lower respiratory infections, HIV/AIDS, diarrhoeal diseases, mal aria and tuberculosis.