As World Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) Day approaches on January 30, 2023 with the theme “Act now. Act together. Invest in Neglected Tropical Diseases”, Médecins Sans Frontières/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) this calling for an improved global response to treat and control NTDs, including through increased global investment for the integration of NTD care into primary health care services and NTD research and development. With recent funding cuts, a general abandonment of NTDs, and healthcare systems disrupted in the wake of COVID, there is real concern that progress towards ending NTDs could be undermined.
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“Over the past three decades, as we treat neglected tropical diseases around the world, MSF has witnessed time and again the devastating impact they can have on people’s lives. On this World Day dedicated to neglected diseases, we reiterate our call to a better global response to the problem, as it is high time to move beyond neglect and end the scourge of these diseases The global community must urgently prioritize funding and investment in neglected diseases, with a particular focus on programmatic activities and implementation, so that there is better access to safe and effective testing and treatment and care for all people affected by these diseases.” Julien Potet, Neglected Disease Policy Adviser, MSF Access Campaign
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NTDs are widespread, affecting more than a billion people and killing hundreds of thousands of people every year. Nevertheless, Since NTDs primarily affect the world’s poorest people, these diseases are often overlooked. by policy makers, so very few resources are made available to address them.
MSF is often present and provides care for people with neural tube defects in areas affected by conflict and natural disasters where resources are scarce and health systems are fragile. Over the past 30 years, MSF teams have treated hundreds of thousands of people with some of the most ignored neural tube defects, such as Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis), visceral leishmaniasis (VL or kala azar) and sleeping sickness (human african trypanosomiasis). – all parasitic NTDs that affect impoverished people living in very remote and neglected areas. MSF not only helped identify new treatments and ways to diagnose people, but also played an active role in reducing the incidence of VL in African and Asian countries and sleeping sickness in African countries. In recent years, MSF has also integrated care for people affected by snakebite envenomation, noma and cutaneous leishmaniasis. To find out more about MSF’s medical evidence on neural tube defects, visit the MSF science portal.
Current global efforts:
In June 2022, MSF joined public health actors and world leaders to sign the Kigali Declaration on NTDs, a high-level political statement that aims to ensure that these diseases are eradicated, eliminated or controlled by 2030. At the same time, MSF warned that reduced funding for NTDs in the wake of the COVID pandemic could be devastating for people in low- and middle-income countries. Despite the commitments made at the Kigali Summit, there remains a real risk that NTDs will be further neglected due to a desperate lack of funding. Therefore, MSF calls on policymakers, countries and philanthropic actors to honor their existing commitments and increase these commitments to fund better integration into primary care and tools to find, diagnose and treat more people with NTDs. , and support the ambitious World Health Organization (WHO) NTD Roadmap which aims to greatly reduce NTDs by 2030.
Furthermore, since there are very limited functional NTD control activities in countries facing armed conflict and other humanitarian situations, MSF reiterates its commitment to offer diagnosis and treatment to people affected by NTDs in humanitarian contexts where MSF can intervene, particularly in patients affected by life-threatening neural tube defects such as human African trypanosomiasis, VL and snakebite envenomation.
Some of MSF’s work and questions on specific NTDs:
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snake bite poisoning is a medical condition that results from a snakebite and causes more deaths and disabilities than any other NTD (about 81,000 to 138,000 people die each year from snakebites). However, it received limited financial commitments at the Kigali Summit. MSF is calling for more funding to improve access to quality antidotes and clinical training, which could result in a significant reduction in the high mortality rates from snakebite envenoming. MSF treats more than 7,000 snakebite patients each year, mainly in the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Yemen. MSF provides regular training on clinical protocols; offers antivenom free of charge, although expensive for MSF; provides other services such as surgery and, less systematically, health promotion at the community level; and calls for the improvement of post-discharge care for follow-up conditions, including mental health care, as a priority.
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Visceral leishmaniasis (LV or kala azar) It is a life-threatening parasitic infection that has been nearly eliminated in South Asia and could also be eliminated in East Africa. MSF is actively engaged with other stakeholders in developing a strategy for the elimination of VL in East Africa, as outlined in the MSF-endorsed Nairobi Declaration on 25 January 2023. And, between 1989 and 2020, the teams MSF staff treated almost 150,000 people for VL in South Sudan, Sudan and Ethiopia.
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No momit is a disease that mainly affects children living in poverty and has not yet been recognized as an NTD by the WHO. MSF and other global health actors have called on the WHO to recognize the noma as an NTDas this could ultimately galvanize support and resources to address the standard at a meaningful level. Since 2014, MSF has supported Sokoto noma hospital in Nigeria with a program of activities for people affected by noma, including survivors and their families.
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Sleeping sickness (Human African trypanosomiasis) is a vector-borne parasitic disease transmitted by the tsetse fly. Thanks to a successful international collaboration, the transmission of sleeping sickness on the African continent has returned to very low levels, although foci of the disease still exist and may reappear if surveillance and attention are abandoned.** MSF calls for greater disease surveillance to keep these levels so low. In addition, between 1986 and 2019, MSF screened almost 3.5 million people for sleeping sickness and treated more than 50,000 patients in seven countries (Angola, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Congo Brazzaville , Uganda and Chad).* *
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Other NTDs that MSF treats where we work include rabies control and dog bites, dengue fever and other vector-borne diseases, schistosomiasis, waterborne and climate-sensitive diseases.
For more information or to speak to our spokespersons, please contact us at: Morag McKenzie at morag.mckenzie@berlin.msf.org or +49 172 525 1319 (including on WhatsApp). And if you want to read more about MSF’s work and the medical evidence on NTDs, check out a curated collection of recent articles on the MSF Science Portal here.
