William Lin's blog

I dare say that WHA54.19 or WHA66.12 may not mean anything to many. They could be acronyms and numbers that could easily refer to a version of software. However, being the Director at Johnson & Johnson responsible for managing the donation program that brings deworming medicines to millions of children around the world, these shorthand references to World Health Assembly (WHA) resolutions are part of my vocabulary.

I consider myself extremely fortunate and even spoiled in this 21st century with smart phones and so much mobile technology available. If I ever feel there is a need to make my life more convenient with technology, chances are I can go to the app store to download some utility that will help. And, even if it’s not 100% satisfactory, by virtue of having asked the question or conducted the search for this app, some techie out there is likely monitoring the query and I can probably be assured that in weeks, if not days, something better will be created.

Over the last 20 years, more than 250 million people have been reached with life-saving neglected tropical disease (NTD) interventions. To mark this significant achievement, USAID recently convened a group of NTD champions to celebrate the delivery of a half a billion treatments against NTDs worldwide.

"It is rewarding work indeed, though I’m not always sure that everyone understands what we do. But every once in a while, I come across something that makes me pause and truly appreciate that others really do understand what the global health community is trying to achieve."

2011 has been a banner year for those of us in the global health community who are working to tackle Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), especially for those of us who focus on the dreaded intestinal worms that affect more than one billion people around the world. And of those one billion, it is children who bear the brunt of the burden. Worms affect children because they are just being children – playing in the soil, exploring their surroundings, being carefree and innocent – totally unaware of the danger lurking in the very soil that is our lifeline.