In advance of every G7 summit, the national science academies of the G7 countries prepare policy statements on the priority issues identified by the G7 host country. This year, the national science academies delivered statements on neglected tropical diseases, antibiotic resistance, and the future of the ocean.
In the statement on NTDs, they note that progress on NTDs “would be a major step towards alleviating poverty.”
NTDs affect the world’s poorest people and place an economic burden on low and middle-income countries. The academies called on G7 leaders to support efforts to reach WHO control and elimination targets by 2020:
“In principle, NTDs are preventable, treatable, controllable and some even eradicable. Moreover, most interventions against NTDs are highly cost-effective. To make progress toward preventing, controlling and eliminating NTDs, the G7 Academies of Sciences call for: (1) increasing efforts to empower and build capacity in affected countries to deal with these diseases, (2) intensifying research on NTDs, (3) developing and delivering affordable and accessible treatments, and (4) NTDs to be fully accounted for in the Sustainable Development Goals.
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Much more needs to be done with a much greater urgency to reach the 2020 targets for all major NTDs. The specificity of diseases as well as the likely adverse impacts of severe climate events, risks of conflicts, increasing mobility/migration, and political instability need to be taken into account when developing strategies for tackling the NTD challenges. NTDs should be fully accounted for in the Sustainable Development Goals.”
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who carries the G7 Presidency this year, invited representatives of the national science academies to a G7 dialogue forum to share their scientific expertise in advance of the 2015 G7 Summit, to be held in June in Schloss Elmau, Bavaria. The event was hosted by Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Science.
In his keynote speech at the G7 Dialogue Forum Science Conference on April 30th, Professor David Molyneux addressed NTDs and the work still needed to achieve the control and elimination goals outlined at the London Declaration in 2012. Professor Molyneux is a Sabin partner and professor at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine where NTDs are a major focus of research. In his speech, he highlighted the need for increased aid to combat NTDs — only 0.6% of overseas development assistance is allocated to NTDs.
Professor Molyneux said that policy makers must be convinced that NTDs are the markers of poverty, that control of these diseases reflect the capacity of health systems to ensure healthier communities and by default reduce the burden of poverty. He argued that addressing the “chronic pandemic of NTDs” requires capacity at all levels across the broad spectrum of health sciences.
After receiving the statement from the academies, Chancellor Merkel responded with a call to strengthen the WHO’s ability to combat disease. “I will attend the World Health Assembly in May, and neglected tropical diseases are on the agenda this year. This will hopefully help to encourage Member States to persevere in the fight against these terrible diseases, especially since simple treatments and measures are often enough to prevent them.”
As the G7 Summit approaches, we hope world leaders heed the national science academies’ call to develop and deliver affordable and accessible treatments for NTDs, and support multilateral efforts to address NTDs as part of the Sustainable Development Goals and the post-2015 development agenda.
