Monthly Archives: March 2011

Carter Center Health Programs and Partners Celebrate Record Progress, 35.8 Million Treatments in Fight Against Neglected Tropical Diseases in 2010

Global Development, Global Health, NTDs, Tropical Medicine, Vaccine Diplomacy

By The Carter Center

The Carter Center’s health programs enabled a record 35.8 million treatments in 2010 to protect against neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in thousands of communities in some of the most remote and forgotten places in Africa and the Americas.

Since 1986, The Carter Center has been a leader in the control, elimination, and eradication of neglected diseases, working at the grassroots in partnership with ministries of health and low-resource communities to conduct health education and mass drug administration, and to develop health service infrastructure.  The Carter Center’s 10 health programs are data-driven and seek to help fill gaps in health care, looking for opportunities to eliminate or eradicate diseases wherever possible, and to control diseases that cannot be completely eliminated.  Center disease interventions currently address Guinea worm, river blindness, trachoma, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis, and malaria.

The Carter Center conducts rigorous annual peer reviews and evaluations in conjunction with ministries of health from 14 countries and other partner organizations.

“We don’t just rely on increased treatment numbers to tell us our efforts are working to improve health. The Carter Center uses evidence-based practices to carefully evaluate whether our interventions are significantly reducing the burden of disease,” said Dr. Donald Hopkins, vice president of the Carter Center’s Health Programs.

The 2010 statistics confirm dramatic improvements in public health achieved as a direct result of the Center’s disease efforts in partner countries.

2010 Achievements

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Integrating Advocacy: Opportunities for Advocacy within On-Site Programming

Commentary, Global Health, Interactive tools

On March 22nd, Health/WASH hosted the World Water Day 2011: Integrating Advocacy to Improve Access to Nutrition, Safe Water, & Health Workshop at the World Bank.  Among the participants were representatives from Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, PATH, AED, UNICEF, USAID, and ONE.  After a brief introduction, we split into 5 working groups to discuss various topics related to improving integrative efforts within global health networks.  I chose to participate in the “Opportunities for Advocacy within On-the-Ground Programming” Working Group.  We shared our insight on some successes and failures of on-site advocacy efforts and after over 20 minutes of discussion, we came to a few conclusions.

Presence makes a huge difference in any outreach effort; we should not rely on social media alone to spread the word.  One group member shared her successes with creating in-country venues where various NGOs working on projects in the same country at the same time, can convene and discuss what they are working on and if there is room for collaboration.  Bringing these forces together on-site and sharing commonalities could lead to great partnerships in the future.

Another participant emphasized the role of key government players—local, state, and federal—who, ultimately, have the last word with how funding is dispersed and employed.  She suggested the importance of providing those officials with various project design options created by the organization(s) themselves.  This way, government officials will have options to choose from and the projects will be tailored to the unique needs of a community; in this way, the organization’s role will be to act as the “hands” of key government players by creating, shaping, and implementing approved projects.

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The Solutions That Aren’t – Part Two

NTDs, opinioncommentary, socio-economics, the future

By: Alanna Shaikh

It makes me wonder. Which of our current successes aren’t going to be seen that way in thirty years?

My dad was an agricultural researcher in the sixties. He was very, very proud of his work on new pesticides. He emigrated from Pakistan to the US specifically so that he could be part of increasing food production and revolutionizing agriculture; Norman Borlaug was a professional colleague. He had no idea that someday people would look at his work and wonder if it was a change for the better.[i]

What are we doing right now that we’ll regret?

Will we give up on bed nets because it is so hard to get people to use them as intended? Or regret manufacturing them in China instead of in the countries where they are used? Conversely, maybe we’ll regret our focus on local production and autonomy and wish we’d just gotten useful products as cheaply as possible and shipped them everywhere.

Maybe we’ll discover that mass drug administration is leading to resistance to common drugs for NTDs, or that it has side effects we didn’t initially know about. On the other hand, maybe we’ll just start putting the necessary drugs right into drinking water to achieve rapid elimination of neglected tropical diseases.

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Medical Brigade in rural Ecuador

Public Healthalbendazole, , , medical brigade,

By: Linda Diep

Students singing the Ecuadorian national anthem.

For my Springbreak this semester, I had the opportunity to go on a public health service trip to Riobamba, Ecuador. I went with a group of twenty-nine undergraduate and graduate students from the George Washington University for a 10-day trip setting up makeshift clinics in various rural areas of Riobamba.  As a local chapter of MedLife, a nonprofit based in New York that provides sustainable healthcare solutions through mobile clinics to poverty-stricken areas in Peru, Ecuador, and Panama, our group saw an estimated 500 patients during our medical brigade.

During the week, we visited five different grade schools where we setup the clinics to address the basic health needs of the local people. We were accompanied by three physicians and a pharmacist, all natives of Ecuador. The clinics contained stations that volunteers rotated positions each day. One day, you would shadow the dentist and assist her in extracting teeth, while the next day you were at the pharmacy where you would cut pills and instruct patients on dosage and treatment.

Patients coming into the clinic.

We saw an average of 100 patients a day. Common ailments suffered by those coming through included Type 2 diabetes among the adults and malnutrition, vitamin deficiency, and burns and fungus due to the harsh climate among the children.

Albendazole available at the pharmacy.

Present in the pharmacy was albendazole, a drug to treat several of the seven most common neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) such as ascariasis (roundworm), trichuriasis (whipworm), and hookworm. Several of the child patients were prescribed albendazole by the internal medicine physician, however, worm infestation was not as prevalent among the population as the aforementioned health conditions.

The patients were very welcoming, and showed their appreciation through friendly handshakes, kind words, and gifts in the form of food. Age groups of patients spanned from infancy to about 15 years old, and 45 to 65 years old. One patient was as old as 91. Mostly women were seen.

Volunteer takes a patient's temperature at vitals station.

My favorite station of the week was the vitals station. Each patient that came through had to stop at this station to document their weight, height, blood pressure, and temperature. Thus, I was able to talk to every individual that passed through that day. The conversations and small banter exchanged were very rewarding, and solidified the feeling that we were actually making an impact.

The trip reminded me that providing basic healthcare is a fundamental part of the continuum of care. Thus, it is essential to treat diseases such as NTDs which contribute to the cycle of poverty. To do your part, visit our “Get Involved” page on the Global Network website, or join the conversation on and .