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."
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