In a recent interview with EFE, the leading Spanish news agency and fourth largest in the world, Dr. Peter Hotez, president of Sabin Vaccine Institute, outlined the message and goals of his recent article that focuses on the intersections of NTDs and the Catholic community.
Dr. Hotez chose to focus this leg of research in majority Catholic regions because the Catholic Church and catholic “have already shown the capacity and willingness to invest in programs for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.” He is optimistic that the Catholic community has the willingness and capacity to continue to support NTD control and elimination initiatives and hopes that they will have a strong influence to entreat G8 and G20 governments to take action.
However, to be clear, Dr. Hotez explains that he is “not suggesting any causality or correlation between NTDs and religion. The common denominator among all countries with high rates of NTDs is extreme poverty. The article highlights the opportunity that the Catholic Church and Catholic charities have to leverage their long-standing history of NTD programs to advocate for greater involvement by governments of developed and emerging economies to expand NTD control and elimination programs in endemic areas.”
With his article, Dr. Hotez endeavors to activate greater collaboration among catholic charity groups and encourage governments of the “endemic regions to adopt stronger NTD control and elimination programs.”
