The UN health agency has called on everybody, including leaders and communities, to confront the inequalities that drive neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and to make bold, sustainable investments to free the world’s most vulnerable communities affected by NTDs from a vicious cycle of disease and poverty.
On World NTD Day,” the World Health Organization (WHO) Monday released a new progress report, highlighting the progress and challenges in delivering NTD care worldwide, against a backdrop of Covid-related disruptions.
NTDs include Buruli ulcer, Chagas disease, dengue and chikungunya, dracunculiasis (Guinea-worm disease), echinococcosis, foodborne trematodiases, human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), leishmaniasis, leprosy (Hansen’s disease), lymphatic filariasis, mycetoma, chromoblastomycosis and other deep mycoses, onchocerciasis (river blindness), rabies, scabies and other ectoparasitoses, schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminthiases, snakebite envenoming, taeniasis/cysticercosis, trachoma, and yaws and other endemic treponematoses.
NTDs continue to disproportionately affect the poorest members of the global community, primarily in areas where water safety, sanitation and access to health care are inadequate.
Although as many as 179 countries and territories reported at least one case of NTDs in 2021, 16 countries accounted for 80 percent of the global NTD burden.
Around 1.65 billion people were estimated to require treatment for at least one NTD, globally.
The “Global report on neglected tropical diseases 2023” shows that the number of people requiring NTD interventions fell by 80 million between 2020 and 2021, and eight countries were certified or validated as having eliminated one NTD in 2022 alone.
As of December 2022, 47 countries had eliminated at least one NTD and more countries were in the process of achieving this target.
Accomplishments made in 2021-2022 build on a decade of significant progress. In 2021, 25 percent fewer people required interventions against NTDs than in 2010, and more than one billion people were treated for NTDs each year between 2016 and 2019 through mass treatment interventions.
“Around the world, millions of people have been liberated from the burden of neglected tropical diseases, which keep people trapped in cycles of poverty and stigma,” WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
“But as this progress report shows, we still have a lot of work to do. The good news is we have the tools and the know-how not just to save lives and prevent suffering, but to free entire communities and countries of these diseases. It’s time to act now, act together, and invest in NTDs.”
The report also noted the significant impact of Covid had on community-based interventions and on access to health facilities, as well as on supply chains for healthcare products.
This led to 34 percent fewer people receiving treatment for NTDs between 2019 and 2020, even if a general resumption of activities enabled an 11 percent increase in recovery in 2021 when around 900 million people were treated.
The new report emphasises greater efforts and investments required to reverse delays and accelerate progress towards the NTD road map targets by 2030.
Source: United News of Bangladesh