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NTDs Included in Doctors Without Borders’ List of Top Ten Humanitarian Crises of 2010

January 4th, 2010

In their 12th annual list of Top Ten Humanitarian Crises, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) included a number of NTDs.

According to the press release:

“Other diseases, such as Chagas, kala azar, sleeping sickness, and Buruli ulcer continue to be neglected, with very few new commitments to expanding access to available treatment or carrying out research for much needed newer and more effective drugs.”

“The tremendous resources devoted to the H1N1 pandemic in developed countries illustrates the response capacity for global health threats when the political will exists,” said Dr. Fournier. “Regrettably, we fail to see the same commitments made to combat diseases claiming millions of more lives each year.”

Started in 1998, the “Top Ten” list “seeks to generate greater awareness of the magnitude and severity of crises that may or may not be reflected in media accounts.”

To view the press release and the “Top Ten” List visit: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/publications/topten/2009/ 

We applaud MSF for including NTDs in their annual list, and hope that more attention, advocacy and political will, will work towards preventing NTDs from being a humantarian crisis in the years to come.

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Night 8: The “Other” NTDs

December 19th, 2009

Tonight we’ll wrap up our Hannukah and NTDs series with a focus on the remaining NTDs as defined by the WHO: buruli ulcer, dengue fever, guinea worm, African sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis, and leprosy.  At the Global Network, we are commonly asked “why do you only focus on seven NTDs?”  The seven NTDs we’ve detailed over the last seven nights are the most common NTDs, representing approximately 90% of the total disease burden.  We also focus on them, however, because they are generally referred to as “tool-ready”–that is to say, we have medications that are safe, affordable, and available to treat the seven most common.

Which brings us to the “other” NTDs that also cause significant suffering among the poorest of the world’s communities. Like the most common ones, these NTDs promote the continuation of poverty in developing communities by impairing physical and intellectual growth and decreasing worker productivity.  But unlike the others, they are either missing treatment/control tools altogether or the tools are difficult to access or afford.

Many groups are working to change this landscape.  Analysis from Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) clarifies:

For the “most neglected” diseases, patients are so poor that they have virtually no purchasing power and cannot spark market interest in drug R&D among pharmaceutical companies. Recently, the field of R&D for neglected diseases has seen the emergence of several new organisations, new donors, new financial mechanisms, and a new political environment. However, although the global R&D landscape has improved for neglected diseases since 2003, the dire needs of the most neglected victims who carry on suffering in the developing world are still largely unmet. A recent study by G-Finder revealed that less than 5 percent of worldwide R&D funding for neglected diseases has been directed towards the most neglected diseases.

To read more about these NTDs, visist our website.

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Posted in NTDs and Hannukah 2009, Uncategorized

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