Reduced funding for Neglected Tropical Diseases could be devastating

Ochieng’ Ogodo

[NAIROBI] Reducing funding for the fight against Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in the wake of COVID could be devastating for people in low- and middle-income countries, says Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

These diseases that impact mostly the poor are often overlooked by policy makers, resulting in few resources being available to address them.

“For many of these diseases, there is no easy solution – diagnosis and treatment are difficult, expensive or not accessible for those in remote or underserved areas, or simply do not exist” says MSF.

According to the World Health Organisation, NTDs ─ also known as diseases of poverty ─ that encompass 17 bacterial, parasitic and viral diseases affect more than one billion people worldwide and an estimated 40 per cent of impacted people live in the WHO African region.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention says that NTDs  such as buruli ulcer, chagas disease, dengue fever, guinea worm disease, echinococcosis, human African trypanosomiasis and leishmaniasis are found in several countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

NTDs often equal death or prolonged disability in the context of chronic poverty or humanitarian crises, such as population displacement, according to MSF. 

MSF is one of the few actors caring for people with NTDs in remote areas where resources are scarce and health systems are fragile.

“Over the last thirty years, MSF teams have treated hundreds of thousands of people with Chagas disease, visceral leishmaniasis, cutaneous leishmaniasis, and sleeping sickness (human African trypanosomiasis) – all parasitic NTDs which affect impoverished people living in very remote and underserved areas,” says MSF.

The international humanitarian medical non-governmental organisation of French origin not only helped identify new treatments and ways to diagnose people, but also played an active role in reducing the incidence of kala azar in Asia and sleeping sickness in Africa.

In recent years, MSF has also expanded care for people affected by snakebite envenoming, Noma and cutaneous leishmaniasis.  

It joined others today in today in signing the Kigali Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), a high-level, political declaration which aims to ensure that these diseases are eradicated, eliminated or controlled by 2030. At the same time, MSF

“MSF strongly endorses the Kigali Declaration on NTDs and commits to continuing our response to these diseases, particularly for people affected by leishmaniasis, snakebite, noma and sleeping sickness, through diagnosis and treatment in the humanitarian settings where we work,” said Daniela Garone, MSF’s International Medical Coordinator.

Important progress achieved towards controlling NTDs over the last decade has recently stalled due to the COVID pandemic as well as substantial aid cuts. Gains made in controlling the spread of diseases like visceral leishmaniasis are further in danger of disappearing largely due to major funding cuts by the UK government which was previously a key financial supporter of NTD programmes.

The Kigali Declaration on NTDs, an important initiative for ramping up the global response to NTDs by prioritizing disease control and supporting the new ambitious WHO NTD Roadmap, needs a broad support, according MSF.

The MSF also calls for the development of new and more user-friendly medical tools that can simplify NTD care and better integrate it into countries’ health programmes.

“It is imperative that the world’s primarily profit-driven Research and Development (R&D) model is overhauled in order to make sure that desperately needed innovations for NTDs do not continue to be deprioritized because they aren’t lucrative for pharmaceutical corporations,” it says.