Tag Archives: Integration

Dr. Neeraj Mistry Interviewed in Africa News Analysis

Africa, Interviews, NTDsAfrica News Analysis, Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases,

Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases Managing Director Dr. Neeraj Mistry was recently interviewed by Africa News Analysis (ANA). ANA is a print and online publication that examines key issues in Africa and the Middle East  through special in-depth reports and feature stories. Editor Musah Ibrahim Musah interviewed Dr. Mistry, covering the social and economic impact of NTDs as well as discussing the cost-effective solutions that are currently available to treat them, including integration with HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. The story also features Global Network’s efforts to work with in-country partners and governments to help get treatments to those affected by NTDs in Africa and around the world. Click here to read the full interview on ANA.

Join up, Scale up: how integration can defeat disease and poverty

Global Health, , Join up, Scale up: How integration can defeat disease and poverty

A new report co-authored by a number of big influential players in global health was released today. Entitled “Join up, Scale up: How integration can defeat disease and poverty,” the document discusses how integration is the key to global and public health successes:

“As governments prepare to gather at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 19 and 20, a new report published by a group of six influential aid agencies provides clear and compelling evidence that a new combined approach to tackling poverty and disease that brings together work on water and sanitation, health, education and nutrition achieves better results for the world’spoorest.

Entitled “Join up, Scale up: How integration can defeat disease and poverty,”the report co-authored by Action Against Hunger, Action for Global Health, End Water Poverty, PATH, Tearfund and WaterAid, highlights examples across 17 countries of how bringing different development approaches together – or integration – is working to help tackle poverty and disease, and calls on the international community including donor and developing country Governments to prioritize and invest in these joined-up programs.”

To read the report and view the press release, click here.

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New Editorial Highlights Importance of NTD Treatments Into Existing Control Programs for HIV-AIDs, TB and Malaria

Global Health, malaria, NTDs, Press Release, Public Health, TuberculosisGlobal Fund, , , Jeff Sachs, , Neeraj Mistry, , PEPFAR, Peter Hotez, , Tuberculosis

Today, a new editorial authored by Peter Hotez, Jeffrey Sachs and others in the New England Journal of Medicine reinforces the importance of integrating neglected tropical disease (NTD) control measures into existing control efforts for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Highlighting a growing body of evidence from global health interventions over the past several years, the editorial argues that there are significant gains that can be achieved by adding treatments for the seven most prevalent NTDs to prevention and control programs targeting HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, including those supported by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

At approximately 50 cents per per­son annually, the value of tying NTD control to other major health initiatives poses one of the most cost effective health interventions avail­able. The editorial also outlines the operational synergies of integrating control and elimination efforts into existing health interventions.  For instance, community drug distributors who provide ivermectin for onchocer­ciasis also provide insecticide-treated bed nets for malaria pro­tection, and bed nets appear to interrupt the transmission of lymphatic filariasis (and possibly other NTDs).

Additionally, low-cost anthelminthic drugs can be administered to pregnant women for intestinal helminth infections and schistosomiasis, thereby improving preg­nancy outcomes.  These drugs could be co-administered with intermittent preventive treatment (IPT) for malaria during pregnancy or with antiretroviral drugs for reducing mother-to-child HIV transmis­sion.

Click here to read the press release and here to access the NEJM website.