Posts Tagged ‘Latin America and the Caribbean’

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Good News on River Blindness

November 23rd, 2011

By: Alanna Shaikh

Mexico, Colombia, and Guatemala are making huge progress against river blindness, aka onchocerciasis. Colombia has eliminated river blindness from within its borders, the first country in Latin America to do so. Mexico and Guatemala have broken the cycle of transmission, and they’re ready to stop mass drug administration next year.

Elimination is a pretty clear term. It means that the disease, while still present on our planet, is down to zero in one particular region; in this case, Colombia. But what does it mean to break the cycle of transmission? Well, onchocerciasis is a tiny parasitic worm[1] that has a pretty complicated life cycle, and one particular kind of fly is essential to the survival of the disease. Without those flies, the disease is not transmitted and dies out.

Photo Credit: The Carter Center

To break the cycle of transmission, you spray insecticide in the areas of fast moving rivers where the flies breed. No more flies, no more onchocerciasis. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it takes fourteen years of spraying to totally eliminate the reservoir of adult onchocerciasis worms and therefore make sure that the disease is gone. Once you’ve reached that point, it takes three more years of close monitoring to ensure that the disease really is gone. If there really are no cases in those three years, then, like Colombia, your country can be certified as having eliminated the disease. » Read more: Good News on River Blindness

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Posted in Blindness, Latin America and the Caribbean, NTDs, Onchocerciasis, Vision

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More from World Water Week 2011

September 7th, 2011

World Water Week 2011 took place this past summer August 21 – 26 2011 in Stockholm, Sweden. The Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases along with our Latin America and Caribbean water initiative partners — the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and FEMSA Foundation — had our very own session during the conference entitled “Focus Latin America and the Caribbean: Fighting Poverty in Latin America: Integrating Water and Health Initiatives.” Panelists convened to take in-depth look at NTDs in Latin America and the Caribbean, and  to discuss promising strategies to sustainably reduce the burden of NTDs within the region. Below are photos from the session:

Our booth during the event.

Panelists (from left to right): Ann Kelly, Partner, Global Philanthropy Group and The Global Water Initiative of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, Vidal Garza Cantú, Director, FEMSA Foundation, Neeraj Mistry, Managing Director, Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, Carlos de Paco, Operations Lead Specialist, Inter-American Development Bank, and Moderator Gian-Carlo Ochoa, Board Member, Charity Water.

Group photo with Global Network Managing Director Dr. Neeraj Mistry and event participants.

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Posted in NTDs, Water and Sanitation, World Water Week 2011

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Eliminating NTDs with Clean Water Initiatives

August 26th, 2011

On Wednesday, the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases co-hosted a seminar at World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden. We were joined by the Howard G. Buffet Foundation to discuss the current state of water and NTD programs within the Latin America and Caribbean region. In the blog post below, Ann Kelly, representative of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation’s Global Water Initiative and co-founder and Partner at Global Philanthropy Group provides an overview of the event, and her experience at Wednesday’s event at the 2011 World Water Week.

By Ann Kelly, representative of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation’s Global Water Initiative and co-founder of Partner at Global Philanthropy Group

As another World Water Week comes to an end here in Stockholm, we are reminded how central water is to so many of the world’s development issues. The other night I had the honor to sit on a panel entitled “Fighting Poverty in Latin America: Integrating Water and Health Initiatives” sponsored by FEMSA Foundation, the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases  (Global Network) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). My co-panelists Vidal Garza Cantú, Director of the FEMSA Foundation; Dr. Neeraj Mistry, Managing Director of the Global Network; and Carlos de Paco, Principal Partnerships Officer at the IDB are already collaborating with the Pan-American Health Organization, and the government of Chiapas to eliminate trachoma, the leading cause of preventable blindness in the world. This collaboration illustrates three things: (1) it is impossible to work on water without also working on health; (2) it takes creative partnerships to do things that are as transformational and sustainable like eliminating trachoma and other NTDs; (3) all of this is achievable relatively easily and inexpensively – it just requires focus and determination as illustrated by the efforts in Chiapas.

As a representative of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation’s Global Water Initiative (GWI), a 10-year, $150 million investment to create an enabling environment for clean water access and security in 13 countries in Africa and Central America, I can say the Foundation did not set out to fund a health intervention. GWI Central America’s mission was to empower communities to manage their own water resources. Our partners in GWI found that the only way to achieve that mission was by focusing on (1) protecting and restoring water sources; (2) promoting equitable and affordable access to water; and (3) reducing water-borne illnesses, especially in young children. In other words, we cannot empower communities burdened by preventable, treatable water-borne diseases. » Read more: Eliminating NTDs with Clean Water Initiatives

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Posted in Latin America and the Caribbean, NTDs, Water and Sanitation, World Water Week 2011

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FEMSA Foundation Fights Poverty in Latin America using Water and NTD Initiatives

August 24th, 2011

Today the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases is participating in a seminar at World Water Week. We will be joined by the FEMSA Foundation to discuss the current state of water and NTD programs within the Latin America and Caribbean region along with covering past successes and future next steps. In the blog post below, Vidal Garza Cantú, Director of the FEMSA Foundation, gives an overview of FEMSA’s work and provides further details on today’s LAC-focused seminar at the 2011 World Water Week.

By: Vidal Garza Cantú, Director of the FEMSA Foundation

FEMSA Foundation is a corporate social investment instrument. What this means is that, with support from FEMSA, the Foundation invests resources to further projects that will improve the overall outlook of communities. Upon starting our activities, we found through research that one of the best ways to really have an impact on people’s opportunities for a better life was to invest in water-related interventions. Today 80% of our projects belong to our Sustainable of Water Resources strategic area. The other 20% belongs to our Quality of Life strategic area, which focuses on the improvement of nutrition, on health, and on biotechnology.

We knew the incredible power water had over people’s lives and we wanted to look for ways for our two strategic areas to converge and increase the impact we had on communities. Water and health seemed to be the perfect match. One of the results we already expected to achieve through our access to safe water interventions was the decrease of disease in the benefited population. In Latin America, as in the rest of the world, rural communities are often burdened by life-threatening diseases due to contaminated water sources. Children, our future, are among the most afflicted demographics. We wanted to put together our experience on water-related intervention with our capabilities on the health front and join our two strategic areas to increase the true impact for people. But we knew that we could never do it alone.

» Read more: FEMSA Foundation Fights Poverty in Latin America using Water and NTD Initiatives

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Posted in Latin America and the Caribbean, Water and Sanitation, World Water Week 2011

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