London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases

	London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases View a recorded webcast featuring Bill Gates, Margaret Chan, nine pharmaceutical company CEOs, senior government officials, and others on the topic of Ending the Neglect and Reaching 2020 Goals.

On January 30, 2012, 13 pharmaceutical companies; the U.S., U.K., and U.A.E governments; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the World Bank; and other global health organizations announced a new, coordinated push to accelerate progress toward eliminating or controlling 10 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) by the end of the decade.

NTDs are the diseases that many people have never heard of, with hard-to-pronounce names like schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, and onchocerciasis. Yet, taken as a whole, these diseases affect more than 1 billion people and lead to US$10 billion each year in lost productivity and treatment costs. These diseases disproportionately impact poor and rural populations who lack access to safe water, adequate sanitation, and essential medicines.

In fact, in just 5 years, the U.S. Government’s NTD Program has supported the delivery of more than half a billion treatments to more than 232 million people in 20 countries.

The integration of NTD control builds on a number of existing strengths, including the donation of essential medicines; the successful track record of the major public-private partnerships already committed to mass drug administration; the widespread reach of community-directed efforts, even in post-conflict countries; and the strengthening of health systems by directly supporting health ministries and volunteer community drug distributors.

By treating the diseases together, we’ve been able to achieve significant cost savings and do far more than we could if we managed them as individual challenges. And we have built upon and supported existing networks, including ministries of health, schools, and nongovernmental organizations, which together provide the program with greater efficiency and long-term sustainability as well as strengthen the capacity of national programs. Countries are now prioritizing NTDs, and many have national plans for NTD control and elimination. They also are allocating their own resources/budget lines for these efforts.

Resources

• View more information on the target diseases. [PDF, 428KB]
• Watch the recorded webcast from the partnership announcement in London.
• Download the press materials related to the Uniting to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases partnership.
• View an interactive map showing the burden of NTDs in countries around the world and the related infographic detailing the partnership. [PDF, 9.6MB]
• Join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #NTDs.