Funding for Neglected Tropical Diseases

On January 30th, a meeting was held at the Royal College of Physicians in London, UK entitled "Uniting to combat Neglected Tropical Diseases. Ending the Neglect and Reaching 2020 Goals".

Coordinated by the UK Coalition against NTD and the Gates Foundation, Thirteen major pharmaceutical companies, government groups and health charities, including the Gates Foundation, announced a joint effort to tackle 10 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in a coordinated fashion. "Today, we have joined together to increase the impact of our investments and build on the tremendous progress made to date," Bill Gates said in a statement, adding that improving people's health would help them become self-sufficient.

It is the largest coordinated effort ever to combat NTDs. The government groups and charities alone are committing just over $785 million in new funding. The pharmaceutical companies will donate billions of doses of treatments, share research work, and access to patented drug compounds.

The effort aims to meet the goals of the World Health Organization's roadmap for controlling neglected tropical diseases by 2020, which targets 17 infections and conditions for renewed control efforts . The 10 diseases selected by this meeting include dracunculiasis, leprosy, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis and trypanosomiasis. "These ancient diseases are now being brought to their knees with stunning speed," said Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO's director-general.

Francois Meslin, Leader of the Neglected Zoonotic Diseases (NZD) team at WHO added; "Thanks to the level of attention the international funding community is now paying to them, classical NTDs will not remain 'neglected' for very much longer. Some are targeted for global or regional elimination as soon as by 2015. There is therefore a better chance to see the 'NZDs', including human dog mediated rabies, replacing the former NTDs soon and hopefully receiving the same level of attention and funding".

Summarised by Louise Taylor from articles in the Huffington Post, Medical News Today, and emails from WHO. The 10 diseases selected at the meeting are: Blinding trachoma, Chagas disease, Guinea worm disease, Leprosy, Lymphatic filariasis, River blindness, Schistosomiasis, Sleeping sickness, Soil-transmitted helminthes, Visceral leishmaniasis.