By: Alanna Shaikh
Two of the links that we just posted are concrete reminders that we understand the Neglected Tropical Diseases. We know what causes them and we know how to control them. Their path is predictable. What we need is the will to keep on fighting them.
Case A: Human African Trypanosomiasis, A Success Story
The WHO reported that Human African Trypanosomiasis is at a 50-year low. The number of new cases reported has now dropped below 10,000. The WHO attributes the success to “Strengthened control and surveillance efforts by national sleeping sickness programmes in endemic countries over the past 10 years…”
In other words, we knew what to do to fight the disease, and then we did it. Dr Hiroki Nakatani, WHO’s Assistant Director-General for HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases, puts it a bit more elegantly, “It is a brilliant demonstration of what can be done with determined and clear day-to-day control efforts, particularly in the absence of new tools.”
In this case, the control effort included better surveillance and case reporting (which negated my fear that we were seeing fewer reported cases because reporting was getting worse), consistent donor support, drug donations, and a partnership with a pharmaceutical company. It’s clear we could apply those methods to more than just Trypanosomiasis. This is the magic formula for fighting many diseases, not just NTDs.
Case B: Dengue, A Frightening Portent of the Global Future
This one is not good news: Dengue fever has returned to the continental United States. This is not a case of people being infected with Dengue while traveling and then entering the US. This is actual infection within the United States. We haven’t seen that in 65 years, and it’s back.
It’s not a surprise. We knew this was going to happen. Here, the New York Times says it better than I could “The upsurge is not unexpected. Experts say more than half the world’s population will be at risk by 2085 because of greater urbanization, global travel and climate change.” (they go on to make a really stupid comment about DDT, which we shall ignore.) There is a reason that I wanted to rename NTDs to “Diseases that might be in hot countries right now, but with global warming they’ll soon be affecting you right there in Minneapolis.”
If we don’t put more work into fighting NTDs where they are endemic now, there are going to be endemic in a lot more places in the future. I wrote about this last week with regard to Chagas.
Maybe we can try to see this as a positive. Now that NTDs are starting to affect wealthy countries, we may see a lot more research and development of new drugs. There are no drugs for Dengue right now, but Sanofi Pasteur is working on a vaccine. Pairing a solid (solid like as much as a billion dollars solid) profit incentive with a humanitarian motive might be exactly what we need to get it to market.
Alanna Shaikh is an expert in health consulting, writing about global health for UN Dispatch and about international relief and development at Blood & Milk. She also serves as a frequently contributing blogger to ‘End the Neglect.”
