By Mawish Raza, Communications Intern for the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases

I have always been keen to recognizing different social justice movements. However, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are new to me. As someone who has recently joined the Global Network to advocate action against NTDs, what has struck me most is the lack of awareness and priority placed on preventing and ending the spread of these diseases.

Governments in developing nations invest a great deal of time and effort to encourage and stabilize their economies in order to increase profits. Yet halting the dispersion of NTDs is also a key component in optimizing production in industries such as agriculture and fishing. Individuals that are impacted by NTDs often live in poverty and don’t have the capacity to fight the diseases they are faced with. NTDs influence the lifestyle and attitude of not only individuals that are affected, but of their larger community – from their own family to their neighbors. Each day that a person isn’t able to go to work or make it to school is one less day that could have provided a step to profitable and personal enrichment. The impact of NTDs isn’t an issue that works in isolation; it impacts the larger community. These diseases create deeper roots for poverty to sustain in these poorly assisted communities – a poverty that not only impacts the social structure of a community, but one that digs deep into the health and mind.

The fact of the matter is that in order to bring an end to the spread of NTDs, the global community needs to address its existence.  Recognizing these diseases draws light to the fundamental influences that handicap individuals, which further impact the nation’s economy, literacy rate and development.

I have never personally had to deal with the physical implications that stem from NTDs. However, my exposure to the work that is being done by various international actors further stimulates my need in impressing urgency to act to end the spread of these diseases. When activists and social movements speak of fostering social justice, we need to recognize the different forms that justice comes in.  The justice that individuals fight for when they are fighting NTDs with a lack of educational and physical resource is the same justice that brought a stream of protests within the Middle East during the Arab Spring. The fight for freedom isn’t always found in a large population of individuals fighting under one cause; the fight for freedom can also be found in contagiously isolating situations, fought by an epidemic health concern.

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary commemorating the announcement of the London Declaration, a pledge associated by a team of global public and private partners that are working to reach an end to 10 NTDs by 2020. The declaration is not only a reminder of the steps that we need to keep up with to actively prevent these global diseases, but a reminder of the action that is taking place. Speaking on behalf of someone who is newly accommodating the resources and applications available to fight NTDs, there isn’t any time better than now to join the fight.