Donors announced new funding and drug contributions to combat the spread of neglected tropical diseases, helping offset a sharp decline in treatment in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
(Bloomberg) — Donors announced new funding and drug contributions to combat the spread of neglected tropical diseases, helping offset a sharp decline in treatment in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The US assigned $114.5 million to the US Agency for International Development to help stop five of the most onerous tropical illnesses, according to Uniting to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases, a collective that works to eradicate the illnesses.
British drugmaker GSK Plc extended its donation commitment for soil-transmitted helminthiasis — an infestation of intestinal parasitic worms, it said.
Tropical diseases including malaria, trachoma and leprosy, which disproportionately afflict women and children in impoverished communities, affect more than 1.7 billion globally.
While many essential healthcare services were disrupted by Covid-19, support for dealing with this group of communicable diseases was among those most severely thrown into disarray by the pandemic.
There was a 34% decline globally in the number of people receiving mass drug administration for so-called neglected tropical diseases in 2020 compared to 2019, according to the UCNTD.
Mass drug administration coverage only increased slightly in 2021, it said.
Other commitments were announced by Ghana and the Anesvad Foundation, which works to reduce neglected tropical diseases.
Both have endorsed the Kigali Declaration, which has garnered 61 signatories since its launch in June, generating about $1.6 billion for the illnesses and more than 19 billion units of medicine.
“We are on the brink of eliminating sleeping sickness and leprosy,” in Ghana, President Nana Akufo-Addo said in the statement.
While neglected tropical diseases are found in several countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa has a high concentration and accounts for half of global trachoma cases, the world’s leading cause of blindness.
Controlling vectors such as mosquitoes and black flies that transmit the diseases, and improving basic water, sanitation and hygiene are highly effective strategies in ending these types of illnesses.
Investing in programs that stop these diseases “leads to better education, health and employment outcomes,” he said.
“An Africa free from neglected tropical diseases is possible.”
With Ghana signing the Kigali Declaration, the total number of endemic country signatories is 12.
(Updates with endemic country signatories in last paragraph)
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