Sunday, July 05, 2015

NTDs

Many developing countries still lack the infrastructure to dispense drugs against neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Neglected tropical diseases comprise various conditions that are prevalent in poor countries around the equator, but receive little international attention due to their limited spread. They include leprosy, river blindness, Chagas' disease and sleeping sickness. Nearly 1 in 6 people worldwide requires treatment for at least one NTD.

Drug delivery remains a crucial problem. Many NTDs are easily tackled by preventive chemotherapy and transmission control (PCT), a process that combines large-scale drug administration programmes with efforts to improve sanitation and raise awareness of how the diseases are spread. 5 million deaths could be averted.

"We have an abundance of cure," said Desmond Swayne, the United Kingdom's international development minister, during the report's launch last week (25 June) in London. "The problem isn't our ability to provide a cure. It's our will to provide the infrastructure that can deliver it to the sufferers."


No comments: