Shawn K. Baker, interim director of nutrition in the Global Development Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and former regional director for Africa at Helen Keller International, has seen amazingly effective public health campaigns in action. In a recent article posted on New York Times Columnist Nick Kristof’s blog, Shawn highlights some of the most important success stories he’s witnessed.

“I have had the privilege of seeing first-hand how much good development assistance can do and the level of commitment and leadership that can be found on the ground,” Shawn writes.

One of Shawn’s success stories highlights the rapid progress made towards controlling neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in Africa.

When speaking of these debilitating diseases, Shawn states, “These are not the headline diseases such as HIV or malaria, and have tongue-twisting names such as onchocerciasis, geohelmintiasis, schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis and trachoma.”

While NTDs do lack the attention given to other diseases like HIV/AIDS or malaria, the international community, NGOs, pharmaceutical companies and national governments are making tremendous progress in developing integrated plans to eliminate NTDs – and they’re succeeding.

According to Shawn, “In 2012 the five national programs in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali, Niger and Sierra Leone treated over 90 million people, while other countries, such as Ghana and Uganda, and now Guinea are showing similarly impressive results. There is real hope that these diseases can be eliminated in our lifetimes.”

Shawn ends his piece by stating that complacency is not an option when it comes to eliminating NTDs, and that much still needs to be done for patients who have already reached the blinding stage of trachoma – one of the NTDs targeted by Helen Keller International.

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