NTD programmes hold the key to universal health coverage and better climate and emergency responses
Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) inflict significant physical, mental, economic, and social harm on over one billion people worldwide, mostly in tropical and sub-tropical areas [1,2].Sometimes they cause death.Even when they are not fatal, however, they often lead to life-long disability, stigma and exclusion [3].The health and social impacts of these diseases lead to increases in poverty and hunger and to reductions in children's ability to learn.They make people less able to play a full and active part in their own lives and in the lives of their communities, contributing to a vicious circle of poverty and poor health outcomes.Dedicated health initiatives and programmes to combat NTDs, as well as the increased integration of services and including better mapping and surveillance, have led to progress against broad development goals, such as the United Nations' 2030 Sustainable Development Goals numbers 1, 2, 3, 6 and 10.As of December 2022, 47 countries had eliminated at least one NTD, and in the five years between 2016 and 2020, more than one billion people annually received NTD interventions [4].These sustained efforts have reduced the global burden of disease across the NTD spectrum, bringing about notable, much-needed gains for people whose lives might otherwise have been devastated.This is, of course, good news; the health system-strengthening initiatives and the development of an extensive, widely skilled health force on the ground that enabled these gains mean that places with otherwise threadbare or non-functional health services have received a minimum level of health provision.NTDs, in this context, provide us with crucial indicators [5].Their collaborative approach and community-level implementation, as well as their ability to reach remote populations and to do so equitably, present a valuable, reproducible model for health and development programmes more generally [6].We propose that some of the most pressing issues in global health today, such as climate change, the drive for Universal Health Coverage, and better detection of new and emerging health emergencies, can be addressed by leveraging the power, reach and know-how of those who plan and deliver NTD programmes.Evidence on the health consequences of climate change is beginning to accumulate [7].WHO's statements have shifted in proportion.Where previously it was considered "a significant and emerging threat to public health", climate change is now described as "the single biggest health threat facing humanity" [8] Climate change affects and will affect human, animal and environmental health both directly (by increasing morbidity and mortality, and by weakening of quality health care provision as resources become more and more stretched) and
Source: PLOS Global Public Health
Institution: World Health Organization
Language: English
Subfield: Parasitology
Field: Immunology and Microbiology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,100
Funder: World Health Organization
OpenAlex ID: W4376133176