Monthly Archives: January 2016

West Wing Characters Learn Seven Facts about NTDs

END7, NTDs, policy, ,

In honor of NTD Awareness Week, and to rally for Thursday’s NTD Advocacy Day, we present the below listicle for your enjoyment.

1. Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a group of parasitic and bacterial diseases that affect the world’s poorest people. Without treatment, they can lead to lifelong disabilities and suffering. But NTD treatment programs struggle to find funding.

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2. The seven most common NTDs infect over one billion people, including half a billion kids, but it’s not all bad. It only costs 50 cents to treat and protect one person from seven NTDs for a whole year.

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3. The United States government — through the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) NTD Program — is a leader in the effort to control and eliminate NTDs worldwide.

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4. Since the USAID NTD Program was launched in 2006, more than 1 billion NTD treatments have been delivered to 460 million people across 25 countries.

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5. Every $1 invested in the program has leveraged $26 in drug donations from pharmaceutical companies — a best buy in global health!
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6. The program’s budget is less than 1% of total U.S. spending on global health. But for the last three years, President Obama has suggested a $13.5 million cut to the program.

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7. END7 student supporters spent last spring urging Congress to protect and increase funding for NTD treatment. But the fight is not over. Send a message to President Bartlett Obama to show your support for the NTD budget!

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Join the END7 campaign to help NTDs. Advocate, fundraise, and to be part of the solution!

END7 is an international advocacy campaign run by the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, an initiative of the Sabin Vaccine Institute. END7 is working to raise the awareness and funding necessary to control and eliminate the seven most common neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) by 2020.

Tune in for a Live Chat on River Blindness

NTDs, Onchocerciasis, River blindness, ,

On Friday, January 22 from 11 a.m.-12 p.m. ET, NPR’s global development and health blog, Goats and Soda, will host a Twitter chat on river blindness with Dr. Neeraj Mistry, managing director of the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases. The chat follows two stories about river blindness from NPR correspondent .tweetchat

Listen to the stories below, tweet your questions to with the hashtag , and tune in on January 22nd to participate in the discussion.

60-year-old Emmanuel Kwame first started to get sick with onchocerciasis, commonly known as river blindness, when he was in his 20s. His hometown of Asubende in central Ghana was hard hit by the disease. Of Kwame’s 12 siblings, six lost their eyesight. Read more.

Bondi Sanbark, the chief in Beposo 2, Ghana, says his village used to be full of blind men led around by boys — but that began to change after the Nobel prize-winning drug, Ivermectin, started being distributed.

Mass ivermectin campaigns are now treating roughly 4 million Ghanaians a year, or more than 15 percent of the population. And the strategy is paying off. No one has gone blind in Beposo 2 for years, says Sanbark. Read more.