As the 2011 World Health Summit approaches next week, the Global Network’s Managing Director Dr. Neeraj Mistry contributes another blogpost to the ONE Campaign Germany. Find the English version below:

By Dr. Neeraj Mistry, Managing Director, Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases

In my previous blog post, I identified neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) as some of the most common yet widely unrecognized diseases currently in the global health arena. NTDs have debilitating effects–impairing the health, economic development and education of the world’s poorest people, also known as the “bottom billion.” We call them neglected diseases because the 1.4 billion people who suffer from NTDs are often far from the houses and minds of people living in the developed world. It’s not all bad news, though. Not only are many of these diseases entirely treatable and preventable, but there have already been significant steps taken towards the control and elimination of NTDs.

Through the remarkable commitment of the United States, the United Kingdom and members of the G8, we have seen enormous gains in the treatment and prevention of NTDs around the world. The U.S. government’s commitment to eliminating NTDs has rapidly expanded in recent years. Through the establishment of USAID’s NTD program, the U.S. created a unique and extremely cost-effective public-private partnership that successfully facilitated the first large-scale efforts to integrate existing disease-specific treatment programs. Since its launch in 2006, the USAID NTD program, in partnership with the pharmaceutical industry, has expanded to countries across Africa, Asia and the Americas–improving the lives of more than 168 million people by delivering approximately 387 million NTD treatments, and training more than 200,000 community workers.

The Global Health Initiative (GHI), President Obama’s six-year effort aimed at improving the health and lives of people in the developing world, has supported the USAID NTD Program and identified neglected tropical diseases as a key GHI target. Together, GHI and the USAID have encouraged country ownership in the delivery of health care resulting in tremendous success. In Mali, a target country of both GHI and USAID’s NTD Program, a total of $29.82 million in NTD treatments have been delivered since 2007. By utilizing community volunteers to deliver drugs in rural Mali,  these programs were able to reach 100 percent treatment coverage in areas that previously had some of the highest rates of infection in the world.  To date, the U.S. government has appropriated a total of $212 million (USD) for NTD control, and these donations continue to grow; this year, the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations agreed to fund a record $89 million for NTD control  despite on-going budget constraints.

The British government has also shown an unwavering commitment to global health and the battle against NTDs. In September 2008, the UK announced a £50 million commitment over five years to fight NTDs.  NTD-control programs are being supported by the British government through its Department for International Development (DFID) and the World Bank. Following  its July 2008 Summit meeting in Japan, the G8 declared that it would make efforts to help control and eliminate NTDs by reaching at least 75 percent of people in the most affected countries.  Currently, however, only the U.S. and the UK have made new financial commitments to fund NTD programs.

Tremendous progress has been made thus far, but for the more than 1 billion people suffering from NTDs around the world, much more work needs to be done. In 2000, all 193 United Nations member states agreed on eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) meant to help lift the world’s poorest countries out of extreme poverty by the year 2015. A specific call was made in the sixth goal, MDG 6, “to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.” We now have the opportunity to further advance progress towards MDG 6 by incorporating extremely low-cost, rapid-impact packages of drugs for NTDs in all countries where they are endemic.

Earlier efforts to control NTDs have made one thing clear: even with relatively small investments, huge results are possible. For example, if NTD treatments could be combined with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria interventions, NTD-related measures would probably represent less than 10 percent of overall programmatic costs. This idea will be just one of the topics of discussion at the 2011 World Health Summit in Berlin, Germany. Please join me on Sunday, October 23 to discuss opportunities for linking NTD control with the control of AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. By strengthening commitment and enlisting the support of governments worldwide, we will come closer to reaching the goal of a world free from NTDs.