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UK announces five-fold increase in funding for NTDs

January 23rd, 2012

Over the weekend, Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) announced a five-fold increase in their aid for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).  Between 2011 and 2015, they will increase their support for NTDs to £245 million.

According to Stephen O’Brien, the International Development Minister, this increase in funding will enable Britain to protect and treat 140 million people in the developing world by providing more than four treatments every second for the next four years.

He said, “British support will take the neglected out of neglected tropical diseases and will not just save lives – but transform lives. By preventing the spread of these diseases and treating their victims, we will enable them to go to school and work so that they can help themselves out of poverty and eventually no longer rely on aid.”

The increased aid will be focused on eliminating lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis), onchocerciasis (trachoma) and schistosomiasis (snail fever), in addition to Guinea worm.

DFID’s announcement comes in advance of the Gates Foundation conference on January 30, 2012 in London, which will bring together governments, NGOs and the private sector to announce new and renew existing commitments to NTD prevention and treatment.

This is great news for the NTD community as a whole and in particular for The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI), two of the Global Network’s founding partners that will now receive additional funding.  Raising awareness about the need for this type of funding is why we launched our new END7 campaign, so we’re hopeful that many other public and private partners will follow Britain’s lead in the coming months.

Read more about the announcement in their press release here.

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Posted in elephantiasis, lymphatic filariasis, NTDs, Onchocerciasis, Trachoma, UK government

A Global Strategy to Eliminate Blinding Trachoma, A Disease Targeted by END7

December 19th, 2011

By: Elizabeth Kurylo, Communications manager, International Trachoma Initiative

Eliminating a disease is no small task. It helps to have a detailed plan. Partners working to eliminate blinding trachoma, one of the seven neglected tropical diseases targeted by END7, have such a plan. It’s called 2020 INSight: The End in Sight.

Produced by the International Coalition for Trachoma Control (ICTC), 2020 INSight is a global strategic plan with crucial next steps toward trachoma elimination by 2020.More than 2 million people are either blind or suffer excruciating pain because of trachoma. It makes one person experience severe sight loss every four minutes and blinds four people every hour.  Over 4.6 million are in the final, painful stages of this eye disease and require surgery to prevent them from going blind. It is endemic in at least 59 countries, in areas with limited access to water and sanitation.

A coordinated effort by governments, nongovernmental organizations, donors and other stakeholders is urgently needed to achieve the goal. Crucial next steps include the following:

  • Survey districts where trachoma is suspected to be endemic, so intervention can begin;
  • Dramatically improve access to clean water and latrines;
  • Increase global funding for trachoma control, including implementation of the SAFE strategy (Surgery, Antibiotics, Facial cleanliness, Environmental improvement);
  • Train teachers and other community leaders about facial cleanliness and better hygiene so they can spread the message in their communities;
  • Quickly address the backlog of 4.6 million people who need surgery to prevent blindness;
  • Identify support for more mass drug administration (MDA) programs to provide about 380 million more antibiotic treatments.

More than 80 percent of the burden of active trachoma is concentrated in 14 countries, where immediate action is needed. Eliminating the disease in Africa alone would boost the continent’s gross domestic product (GDP) 20-30 percentage points based on conservative annual productivity loss estimates.

Since 1998, Pfizer Inc has donated more than 225 million doses of the antibiotic Zithromax® to treat and prevent blinding trachoma. The International Trachoma Initiative (ITI) manages the distribution of the medicine.

Get your copy of 2020 INSight at the ICTC website.

 

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Posted in Blindness, NTDs, Trachoma, Vision

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Kenya: Nation Setting Sights on Eliminating Blinding Disease

November 16th, 2011

 

Woman with trachoma. Photo credit: HKI

Just recently launching a five-year plan to eliminate NTDs, Kenya is working tirelessly to ensure that the country will soon be free of these parasitic diseases. Check out what’s currently being done in the fight against trachoma, one of the seven most common NTDs, in an article recently published in All Africa (the largest online distributor of Africa-focused news) and includes a quote from Global Network Managing Director Dr. Neeraj Mistry:

“Olenarau — Had a community health worker not found him at the rural Kenyan village of Olenarau, 65-year-old Tonke Nalakiti would still be blaming his failing sight on old age.

But the health worker, who was trained to identify patients infected with trachoma, succeeded in convincing Nalakiti that his condition could be corrected through simple surgery and antibiotics.

After a swab of iodine and a jab of anesthesia to ease the pain of incision, the elder from the remote village south of the capital, Nairobi, had the infection surgically corrected in less than 15 minutes.

National surveys indicate that Nalakiti is among some 3.4 percent of patients in Kajiado County whose trachoma has reached the blinding stage, making it a serious public health problem in that region and many other similarly remote areas with little access to health care and screening.” Click here to continue reading.

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Posted in Africa, NTDs, Trachoma

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Reading List 10/25/2011

October 25th, 2011

Stay up to date on the latest NTD and global health news with our reading list! Today we’re reading about:

Pfizer Donates Zithromax, Promotes Eye Screening
AS part of its corporate social responsibility and efforts to forestall the onset of preventable eye disorders such glaucoma and trachoma which lead to blindness, Pfizer Specialities Nigeria recently held free eye screening services in Abuja, Ilorin, Kano, Osun, Akwa-Ibom and Delta States. A donation of Zithromax was officially handed to the Minister of Health in Abuja through the company’s International trachoma Initiative.

Global plan targets devastating eye disease
Blinding trachoma, one of the oldest known infectious eye diseases, may be facing its end game. The world’s leading cause of preventable blindness, trachoma brings extraordinary human suffering and economic devastation to tens of millions of people, mostly women and children in poorer countries. Yet as a result of development and targeted interventions it is now limited to an estimated 59 countries, often affecting the poorest populations in Africa and Asia.

5 districts declared filariasis disease free
Dhaka, Oct 25 (bdnews24.com) – The government has declared five districts free of the crippling mosquito-borne filariasis disease, for the first time in Bangladesh after years of mass drug administration. State minister for health Mozibur Rahman Fakir, on Tuesday, announced the name of the districts – Meherpur, Rajshahi, Dinajpur, Patuakhali and Barguna – where the prevalence rate for the parasitic disease, also known as elephantiasis, was found to be below one percent.

A Fresh Insight into Transmission of Schistosomiasis: A Misleading Tale of Biomphalaria in Lake Victoria
Lake Victoria is a known hot-spot for Schistosoma mansoni, which utilises freshwater snails of the genus Biomphalaria as intermediate hosts. Different species of Biomphalaria are associated with varying parasite compatibility, affecting local transmission. It is thought that two species, B. choanomphala and B. sudanica, inhabit Lake Victoria; despite their biomedical importance, the taxonomy of these species has not been thoroughly examined.

Economics of drug discovery, development for neglected diseases
One of the major reasons why some of the major healthcare problems related to neglected diseases are not addressed by large pharma companies is the lack of large markets which are enablers for ensuring adequate returns on the investments made. For example with rising costs of drug discovery reaching over $ 1.5 billion for every new drug reaching the market, there are not many drugs for neglected diseases which could attract adequate markets in value terms.

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Posted in Africa, Blindness, NTDs, reading list, Trachoma

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