Category Archives: schistosomiasis

END7 Funds NTD Projects Around the World

Africa, de-worming, elephantiasis, END7, Global Development, Global Health, hookworm, lymphatic filariasis, MDA, NTDs, parasites, Sabin Vaccine Institute, schistosomiasis, Soil Transmitted Helminths (STH), Student Advocacy, WASH, Water and Sanitation

This spring, we awarded nearly $400,000 in new grants for neglected tropical disease (NTD) control and elimination activities in 2016.

This funding is made possible by generous donations to END7, an international advocacy campaign that seeks to raise the awareness and funding necessary to control and eliminate the seven most common NTDs. The campaign is managed by the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases and 100% of donations to the END7 campaign go straight to NTD programs. Donations to Sabin Foundation Europe, a partner of the U.S.-based Sabin Vaccine Institute and the Global Network also helped make these grants possible.

The grants will make a significant impact in supporting integrated NTD programs in six countries. All projects are coordinated with Ministries of Health and/or the World Health Organization in each country. Many of the projects include mass drug administration (MDA) for the most common NTDs and training of health care workers. These projects are expected to benefit nearly six million individuals at risk from NTDs and train tens of thousands of health workers and volunteers to lead the NTD control and elimination effort into the future.

Awarded to existing efforts that faced a funding gap, these projects will have a lasting impact on improving and expanding existing programs to reach ambitious NTD control and elimination goals in Africa, Asia and Latin America – the regions with the largest NTD burden:

Nigeria
 $50,000 to support integrated MDA for seven NTDs, administered by Sightsavers with the support of the Federal and Kebbi State Ministries of Health. Nearly 5.9 million people will receive donated medicine in Kebbi state, in northwest Nigeria, where all seven NTDs are widespread. Sightsavers will continue their successful MDA in the region and expand to new areas.

Somalia
 $66,200 to support the first integrated MDA in five regions of southwestern Somalia by the new NTD Program of the Ministry of Health and Human Services. The MDA will target schistosomiasis (snail fever), ascariasis (roundworm), hookworm and trichuriasis (whipworm) among school-age children and adults in areas of high prevalence. The NTD Programme was established in 2015; success this year will help scale up the delivery of donated medicine to the rest of the country.

Cote d’Ivoire
 $28,789 to support water, sanitation and hygiene education to prevent NTDs in Cote d’Ivoire, administered by Helen Keller International. More than 7,000 health workers, school teachers and community health volunteers will be trained to reach more than 2.5 million people.

Guyana
 $111,146 to support MDA to eliminate lymphatic filariasis in the most populous region of the country, administered by the Pan American Health Organization and the Ministry of Public Health. Guyana is on track to eliminate lymphatic filariasis (also known as elephantiasis) by 2020. These funds were raised for END7 by the Sabin City Group in London.

India
 $60,546 to assist a local NGO, Churches Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA), to expand their successful efforts to treat and prevent lymphatic filariasis to West Bengal. This grant will enable CASA to train community members to manage the swelling and disability that often results from later stages of lymphatic filariasis. Each infected patient will receive a hygiene kit with soap, a towel and antifungal ointment and be shown how to care for themselves to reduce swelling. CASA will also promote the government’s annual MDA targeting 500,000 people for lymphatic filariasis treatment in West Bengal.

Myanmar
 $75,645 to assist the Department of Public Health to determine where MDA for lymphatic filariasis has succeeded and can be concluded. Nine districts with a population of nearly 7 million have already conducted more than five rounds of MDA for lymphatic filariasis. Officials will determine whether transmission has been interrupted.

The Global Network team reviewed 37 proposals from a range of partners tackling NTDs around the world and selected projects with the potential to have the most lasting impact, leverage further investment and bolster country-led efforts to eliminate NTDs.

To date the Global Network has awarded more than US$1 million in grants to 19 partners. From individual donors contributing $5 a month to student groups raising $10,000 over the course of a school year, the END7 campaign has mobilized a diverse and growing community of supporters from countries around the world dedicated to supporting the fight against NTDs. Together, these contributions are moving the NTD elimination effort forward by helping communities set up treatment programs they can run themselves. END7 supporters fill funding gaps in successful NTD treatment programs, highlighting the tremendous impact of this inexpensive treatment and the power of partnership in the fight against NTDs.

The Global NGO Deworming Inventory: Taking Stock of Progress against NTDs

Children Without Worms, de-worming, Global Development, Global Health, hookworm, intestinal parasites, NGOs, NTDs, Public Health, schistosomiasis, Soil Transmitted Helminths (STH), WHO, , , , ,

Child receiving treatment CameroonAccording to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 873 million children are at risk of soil-transmitted helminths (STH), including roundworm, hookworm and whipworm. In children, STH infections can lead to malnutrition, anemia and stunting. In both adults and children, they can cause fatigue, intense abdominal pain and chronic diarrhea. In severe cases they can even cause bowel obstruction, rectal prolapse and appendicitis.

To improve health and development in infected communities and reduce the prevalence of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), WHO aims to control STH and schistosomiasis by 2020. Meeting this goal requires regularly deworming at minimum 75 percent of the preschool-age and school-age children who are at risk of STH or schistosomiasis. To ensure such an ambitious global goal is met, it is paramount that ministries of health, WHO and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) coordinate and share data.

WHO operates the Preventive Chemotherapy and Transmission Control (PCT) Databank, which tracks the number of children given PCT for STH, schistosomiasis and three other NTDs. The databank is populated largely by information reported by ministries of health and helps policymakers and implementers understand where deworming programs are active and where more interventions are needed to meet the WHO target of controlling STH and schistosomiasis by 2020.

However, gaps in the PCT Databank have become apparent. The 2013 STH preschool treatment data was recently revised when supplementary data was submitted by UNICEF. This data caused a 104 percent increase in the recorded number of preschool-age children treated for STH. Clearly, better coordination is needed to ensure the global community meets 2020 goals.

To facilitate better coordination among WHO, ministries of health and NGOs, the Global NGO Deworming Inventory collects data from NGOs administering deworming treatments for STH and schistosomiasis. The data are compiled into a single database with disease-specific information by Children Without Worms (CWW).

After the data are compiled, WHO will merge the CWW database with national program data provided by ministries of health to the PCT Databank. This effort will make deworming dollars go even further by strengthening program monitoring and leading to an efficient use of resources. Ultimately, it will be an important step in controlling STH and schistosomiasis.

You can learn more about the Global NGO Deworming Inventory — and implementers can submit their data — at http://www.deworminginventory.org.

Children at dusk in Malawi

Calling Time on Urogenital Schistosomiasis

Africa, NTDs, schistosomiasis, , , ,

I spent many of my teenage years living in Malawi, enjoying swimming in beautiful Lake Malawi. Wind on to age 30, and I was struggling to get pregnant. Eventually, following illness, I was diagnosed with schistosomiasis by a consultant and colleague at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. I was told that I had probably been infected for a while and that it might be affecting my fertility. So I took praziquantel, the only available drug against the parasite, and soon after I was pregnant. Today my first born daughter is 10 years old. Whilst the links between urogenital schistosomiasis, sub-fertility and HIV have become increasingly well-established over my first born daughter’s life time, a combined and robust health systems action that brings together neglected tropical disease, sexual and reproductive health and HIV communities to address and scale up treatment for urogenital schistosomiasis is sadly lacking.

It is 20 years since the Beijing Women’s Conference and the International Conference Population and Development and the sexual and reproductive community have been taking stock on progress, challenges and future priorities. I attended a research agenda setting meeting on sexual and reproductive health, rights and gender at the WHO on 12th and 13th of January, where we discussed how to best decide priorities for action. Scaling up treatment for urogenital schistosomiasis is arguably a win-win.

The global burden of disease

Schistosomiasis is wide spread and there are two forms of disease, intestinal and urogenital. An estimated 600 million people are at risk of being infected and approximately 200-220 million people are living with schistosomiasis in Africa. Of the people infected with urogenital schistosomiasis it is thought that between about 100 and 120 million suffer from urinary and reproductive tract damage, which also impacts directly with HIV co-infection and sub-fertility in general. Typically many adolescent girls and women exhibit several symptoms in their lower genital tract where overt bleeding and unpleasant discharge, general discomfort and pain during sex can lead to low self-esteem, depression and stigma.

Peter Hotez estimates that globally there are between 67-200 million cases of urogenital schistosomiasis among girls and women. Hotez argues that between 20 million and 150 million girls are affected, possibly making it one of the most common gynaecological conditions in sub-Saharan Africa but unfortunately much under-reported. Urogenital schistosomiasis, as in my experience, also affects fertility and it is estimated to reduce a woman’s reproductive health capacity by up to 75%.

The links between urogenital schistosomiasis in women (female genital schistosomiasis) and HIV are well established. Writing in the Lancet, Stoever and colleagues argue that up to 75% of girls and women infected with female genital schistosomiasis develop often irreversible lesions in the vulva, vagina, cervix, and uterus, creating a lasting entry point for HIV and discuss how research in Zimbabwe showed that women with female genital schistosomiasis had a threefold increased risk of having HIV. In a recent review of the evidence Pamela Mbabazi and colleagues argue that “Studies support the hypothesis that urogenital schistosomiasis in women and men constitutes a significant risk factor for HIV acquisition due both to local genital tract and global immunological effects”.

Gender, equity and rights

There is remarkable overlap between the maps showing high HIV prevalence in Africa (particularly amongst women and adolescents girls) and those showing cases of female genital schistosomiasis. A complex interplay of biological, social and cultural factors means that young women are particularly vulnerable to HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. Gender norms also shape exposure to urogenital schistosomiasis, with women being particularly responsible for activities involving water in many communities (washing, cleaning, collecting water etc). Drawing on work from Ghana, Vlassoff and Manderson have shown that women interact with water significantly more often than men.

What to do?

Several tens of millions of praziquantel tablets are now donated each year by Merck-KGaA for mass drug administration campaigns as a cost-effective method to protect people from the urogenital schistosomiasis. Hotez argues that by preventing female genital schistosomiasis in sexually active women we have an innovative and timely opportunity to reduce and likely much reduce HIV transmission throughout many rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa.

But in infected communities treatment also needs to start early.

Stoever and colleagues argue that periodic and regular treatment with praziquantel from when children are first infected should prevent the development of genital lesions, which increase HIV risk and cause gynaecological problems. Treatment, however, may need to be started even earlier as the extent and burden of schistosomiasis in pre-school-aged children is being more fully described.

To make progress in this area we need joint action between the HIV, sexual and reproductive health and neglected tropical disease communities. Health workers and communities need more information on the multiple impacts of urogenital schistosomiasis and how it can be treated.

The lack of action to date on urogenital schistosomiasis clearly illustrates the importance of new partnerships and new approaches to scaling up strategies to address neglected tropical diseases. COUNTDOWN, a new initiative in Cameroon, Ghana and Liberia, will be paying close attention to the potential role of close-to-community providers such as drug distributors in providing an interface between communities and health systems.   We will also evaluate how to deliver equitable drug delivery for schistosomiasis through the inclusion of preschool-aged-children, out-of-school-children and adults. The Director of COUNTDOWN is helping to co-organise a meeting in South Africa later in the month where several members of COUNTDOWN will also attend. It brings together world leaders in the field of schistosomiasis, HIV and paediatrics to present on the current state and future direction of research on female genital schistosomiasis.

COUNTDOWN is set to foster and to stimulate others in thinking of innovative ways of prompting a synergistic approach to neglected tropical diseases which crosses sectors and builds strength in national health systems.

If you would like to find out more follow us on  or email .

This blog post was writtem by Sally Theobald, COUNTDOWN Consortium & Research in Gender and Ethics: Building stronger health systems (RinGs), and was originally posted on Cross-Talk: A Place to Share New approaches to Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Photo courtesy of .

Government of Nigeria Releases New Data on the Prevalence of Schistosomiasis and Intestinal Worms

Africa, schistosomiasis, Soil Transmitted Helminths (STH)

 

Nigeria_1

On Thursday June 4, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health released, for the first time, comprehensive data on the national distribution of two major neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) — schistosomiasis and intestinal worms. This new information, gathered by the government of Nigeria and a network of partners, found that across 19 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) approximately 24 million Nigerians were at risk for schistosomiasis and 21 million were at risk for intestinal worms. Children between the ages of 5 – 10 had the highest prevalence of infection. The results also showed that men were more likely than females to have one of the diseases.

Nigeria is said to have the highest burden of NTDs in sub-Saharan Africa. While the government and NGO partners have already taken several steps to address the burden of disease, comprehensive epidemiological mapping had not been available until recently. Moving forward, the data gathered from this mapping project will aid the Federal Ministry of Health in planning effective intervention measures for both schistosomiasis and intestinal worms.

People infected with NTDs like schistosomiasis and intestinal worms are often unable to work or attend school – resulting in an endless cycle of economic hardship. Treating these diseases is critical to reducing poverty and boosting economic prosperity. Given the strong association between NTDs and economic development, NTD control and elimination should be considered an important factor in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Nigeria. Nigeria’s quest to be one of the 20 major economic players globally by 2020 as captured in it Vision 20: 2020 will depend on a healthy and productive society that does not neglect the less fortunate.

The prevalence mapping survey was completed by analyzing 50 – 55 children from five randomly selected schools in the 19 states and FCT. The Federal Ministry of Health partnered with the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, Sightsavers, Helen Keller International, DFID and RTI/ENVISION to carry out the survey. Epidemiological data on both diseases were collected using a novel technique; the LINKS system developed by the Task Force for Global Health which uses smart phones for data collection and cloud based data reporting and management.

Map of Nigeria displaying study area

Map of Nigeria displaying study area

The results showed an overall prevalence rate of 9.5 percent for schistosomiasis and 27 percent for intestinal worms.

The data gathered from the mapping survey will enable Nigeria to receive the appropriate amount of donated medicines to treat schistosomiasis and intestinal worms, so that they can deliver the medicine to where it is most needed. In addition to providing actionable data, the mapping project helped build and improve the capacity of health workers across Nigeria for the country’s NTD programme. The project also fostered a platform for cross-sector learning and skills sharing, which ultimately improved programme coordination.

Moving forward, the Federal Ministry of Health has recommended that all levels of government (Federal, State and LGAs), NTD partners and other stakeholders — with the cooperation of the communities — scale up uninterrupted provision and administration of appropriate medicines alongside other environmental improvement interventions such as clean water and sanitation provisions. Plans should also be put in place for impact assessment after the third year of consistent Mass Administration of Medicines.

While there is much work to be done, the successful completion of epidemiological mapping for schistosomiasis and intestinal worms is a promising sign. Armed with this information, Nigeria can strategically and effectively scale up their efforts to control and eliminate these debilitating diseases for a more prosperous Nigeria.  Nigeria’s new government, led by President Buhari, should take advantage of this cost effective and relatively simple intervention in order to make a tremendous impact on the country’s most vulnerable populations.

Photos provided by Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health.