Investments in NTDs yielding results — Report
A new report has shown dramatic health and economic benefits from investing in combating neglected tropical diseases.
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Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a group of parasitic and bacterial infectious diseases of poverty that affect one in six people worldwide.
NTDs keep children out of school, parents out of work, and cause stunting and impaired brain development, locking societies into endless cycles of poverty.
The report, entitled Country Leadership and Collaboration on Neglected Tropical Diseases which was launched in London, was released by Uniting to Combat NTDs, a group of organisations committed to achieving the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) 2020 goal to control and eliminate 10 NTDs as laid out in the London Declaration.
In 2012, a diverse public-private coalition of partners endorsed the 2012 London Declaration on NTDs, committing to achieve the WHO’s 2020 targets for 10 NTDs.
The 10 diseases covered by the London Declaration include river blindness, Guinea worm disease, lymphatic filariasis, blinding trachoma, schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminths, leprosy, Chagas disease, visceral leishmaniasis and sleeping sickness.
Established in 2012, Uniting to Combat NTDs aims to chart a new course toward health and sustainability among the world's poorest communities.
Country ownership
The report finds that countries are increasingly taking ownership of NTD programmes and have started providing new funding and are pursuing innovative approaches to combat these devastating diseases.
“It is encouraging to see increased state-level engagement and strong leadership towards ownership of national control programmes,” said Dr Dirk Engels, WHO Director of the Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases.”
This comes on the heels of the landmark Addis Ababa Commitment on Neglected Tropical Diseases, which 26 Ministers of Health – including then Minister Kwaku Agyemang-Mensah – endorsed several months ago. Through this commitment, leaders of NTD-endemic countries promised to increase domestic investment, promote multi-sector approaches, encourage adoption of long-term strategic plans and ensure mutual support of NTD programmes.
Several countries have already taken on primary responsibility for financing their NTD programmes. Endemic countries are increasing domestic funding for NTDs and innovating to find new ways to deliver critical drugs. In doing so, they are improving coverage rates and making strides toward eliminating these diseases, with many already achieving elimination goals for individual diseases.
NTDs in Ghana
According to the report, if countries achieve WHO’s 2020 targets, healthier citizens would generate an estimated US$623 billion in increased productivity between 2015 and 2030 – meaning that for each US$1 invested in NTD scale-up, endemic countries would see productivity gains of US$51 from 2015 to 2020 and US$184 for 2021-2030. In Ghana alone, this would be worth $1.8 billion through 2030. Ghana has an integrated, comprehensive NTDs programme and was certified guinea worm disease-free in January 2015.
The country, which is one of 10 countries with people affected by schistosomiasis has developed a finance strategy for NTD sustainability, linked to its master plan, that includes resource tracking to better understand resource needs, and has helped secure thousands of dollars from private local sources in 2014.
Public-private partnership
The backbone of these efforts is a diverse and committed public-private partnership which have seen pharmaceutical companies donating 3.5 billion NTD treatments since the launch of the London Declaration and are committed to donating about $17.8 billion worth of NTD drugs through 2020.
Other partners, like the Global Trachoma Mapping Project, the Global Schistosomiasis Alliance and the NTD modelling consortium are collaborating to find innovative ways to advance NTD progress.
Still not on pace
Despite progress, the report identifies several areas where progress must be accelerated. These include coverage in places where improvement is still too low, prioritising research and development and scaling up programmes to address funding gaps.
The report cites an annual delivery funding gap of US$200-300 million between now and 2020. The WHO estimates that low- and middle-income countries could fully fund their share of universal coverage against NTDs with less than 0.1 per cent of domestic spending on health.