By: Alanna Shaikh
How do I think of NTDs, let me count the ways…
- As a social justice issue. The neglected tropical diseases exemplify unfairness on a global scale. NTDs disproportionately affect poor countries, and within poor countries they affect poor people. Among poor people, they disproportionately affect women and children[i]. NTDs are an assault on the members of our global community who are already living the most difficult lives and have the fewest resources to overcome the challenges of disease infection. Often disabling and disfiguring, the NTDs affect people already at risk for social exclusion – women and poor people – and push them even further to the periphery.
- As an economic issue. More than a billion people suffer from NTDs – diseases with symptoms like severe pain, blindness, extreme swelling of the limbs, fatigue, cognitive impairment, and anemia. That has a serious economic impact on the countries where NTDs are endemic. One example: chronic hookworm reduces lifetime wages earned by 40%. Furthermore, says Dr. Peter Hotez, NTD-related reductions in agricultural productivity results in billions of dollars lost every year. A billion here, a billion there – that kind of thing starts to add up. If that amount sounds overblown to you, remember that there are a billion people with NTDs. If they each lose ten dollars because of their infection, that’s a ten billion dollar loss right there. And NTDs, as mentioned affect women, children, and men working in agriculture.
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