Neglected Tropical Diseases

Description

Funding for Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) seeks to eliminate NTDs, a group of parasitic and bacterial diseases that sicken, disable, and kill more than 1 billion people worldwide. The program focuses on community-wide administration of safe and effective medicines, emphasizes drug administration, morbidity management, disability prevention, and research.

What Does This Buy?

Supports the distribution of treatments.

Justification for the Request

• NTDs disproportionately affect poor and marginalized populations. NTDs coexist with poverty because they thrive in places with limited access to clean water, sanitation, and protection from the carriers/transmitters of disease.
• Since its start in 2006, the NTD program has supported the distribution of 2.3 billion safe and effective treatments to more than 1.1 billion people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This includes:
  • 253 million people no longer at risk for lymphatic filariasis or elephantiasis,
  • 102.4 million people no longer at risk for blinding trachoma,
  • 3 million people no longer requiring treatment for onchocerciasis, and
  • Training of 5.8 million individuals in partner countries to address these diseases.
• More than 1 billion people worldwide suffer from one or more NTDs, which are responsible for approximately 534,000 deaths every year.
• U.S. investments leverage private sector donations. Every $1 invested by the U.S. government leverages $26 in donated medicines for mass treatment campaigns.

U.S. Interest

NTDs contribute to poverty by impairing intellectual development in children, reducing school enrollment, and hindering economic productivity by limiting the ability of infected individuals to work.

Bold Vision

• Additional investments are urgently needed to support research and development for new tools, including diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines, for all NTDs.
• Additional investment can maximize the benefits of increased drug donations received from pharmaceutical companies to ensure that all countries supported by U.S. government programming can reach national scale and maintain progress toward the WHO 2020 goals.
• With additional funding, the U.S. can broaden preventive drug treatments for seven of the most prevalent NTDs by using an integrated mass drug administration delivery strategy that could be delivered by trained nonhealth personnel.

Impact of Cuts

Cuts would erode hard-won gains and increase the number of people infected and/or damaged by disease.