Neglected Tropical Diseases

Neglected tropical diseases, or NTDs, are a group of up to 15 disabling conditions from common infections that primarily affect the estimated 2.7 billion people who live on less than $2 a day. Together, NTDs cause approximately 534,000 deaths annually. NTDs occur primarily in rural areas and in poor urban settings in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America. There are inexpensive, safe and effective treatments available for the seven most prevalent diseases (the soil-transmitted helminthes, particularly hookworm, roundworm and whipworm; schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, and two blinding diseases, onchocerciasis, and trachoma). The diseases thrive under conditions linked to poverty, such as unsafe water, poor sanitation, and substandard housing, and lead to chronic severe physical pain, irreversible disability, and gross disfigurement. For more information on each of the NTDs, click on their links on the left hand side of this page.

NTDs promote poverty, stigmatize, disable and inhibit individual’s ability to care for themselves or their families. In addition, the disabling effects of NTDs have an enormous economic impact on the work force; hookworm is estimated to cause a 40% reduction in future wage earnings. In India, lymphatic filariasis (LF) causes a $1.5 billion loss in GNP per year. Yet, these diseases are both treatable and beatable. A blueprint for their control or elimination has been established by a group of private, public, and international organizations; the rapid impact package, which would include four drugs to treat 7 NTDs with the majority of drugs donated by pharmaceutical companies, would cost only 50 cents per person per year.

Controlling NTDs cuts across both of HKI’s main program areas: eye health and nutrition. For decades HKI has been at the forefront of combating the two blinding NTDs, trachoma and onchocerciasis.  One of the organization’s core strengths is layering its programs in order to increase impact. In recent years, HKI has expanded its ivermectin distribution programs, which fight onchocerciasis, to include the donated albendazole to control LF in several countries.

HKI’s school-based programs provide an integrated set of community-health interventions, including increasing students’ knowledge of hygiene and sanitation practices and good nutrition, and providing dietary supplements and tetracycline eye ointment at the school.  HKI has worked to control of soil-transmitted helminthes (STHs) for over 10 years as part of integrated anemia control including integration of de-worming into school health programs, vitamin A supplementation campaigns for children younger than 5 years of age, and prenatal services.

HKI currently implements crosscutting strategies to combat  NTDs (onchocerciasis, trachoma, the three most common STHs, LF, and schistosomiasis) in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the DRC, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania. Prevention and treatment of trachoma, STHs and schistosomiasis are integrated into HKIs school health programs because these conditions disproportionately affect school-age children. HKI also promotes measures to improve hygiene and sanitation practices that can greatly improve NTD-prevention efforts.

HKI is also a founding member of the Global Network for NTD Control, which was established in order to harmonize activities to scale up public-private partnerships for the mass delivery of medicines controlling NTDs and to mobilize increased financial support for these efforts. For more information about the Global Network for NTD Control, click here.