Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases

We coordinate and support policies and strategies to enhance global access to interventions for the prevention, control, elimination and eradication of neglected tropical diseases, including some zoonotic diseases.

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Collaboration

Enhanced collaboration among all stakeholders

G. Cooper
Lets shake hands. A cured leprosy patient in Jaisalmer Rajasthan India

Enhanced collaboration among all stakeholders is required to achieve the 2030 NTD road map targets and defeat neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).

For more than two decades, such collaboration has been instrumental in the global scale up and implementation of NTD programmes.

Since 2012, and particularly through the London Declaration on NTDs, a motivated and exemplary private–public partnership has rallied the global partners community, and has demonstrated that collaborative and coordinated action can achieve policy facilitation, foster better opportunities to work together, and generate better outcomes. Member States, international agencies, manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, vaccines, diagnostics and insecticides, nongovernmental organizations, academia, civil society and United Nations agencies have all joined efforts to defeat NTDs.

At country level, coordination among interventions targeting different NTDs, between the NTD programme and other health programmes, and between ministries of health and other sectors are crucial to translate global policies into locally integrated services and achieve the set targets and goals, towards control, elimination and eradication of NTDs.

Defeating neglected tropical diseases through enhanced collaboration

Sustaining and embracing new partnerships can strengthen local and national health structures and systems, stimulate community engagement, improve the compliance with NTD programmes and accelerate cross-sectoral work.

The integrated approaches advocated in the new road map also show the importance of working together optimally and collaboratively in face of numerous challenges as experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic in which we are all called to do more with fewer resources.

WHO Collaborating Centres

Providing strategic support to the implementation of NTD programmes and objectives

WHO Collaborating Centres are institutions that include research organizations, university faculties, academia or other centres of excellence that are designated by the Director-General to carry out activities in support of the Organization's work.

The main role of WHO Collaborating Centres is to provide strategic support to the implementation of NTD programmes and objectives and assist in the development and strengthening of institutional capacity in countries.

As the global NTD community continues to accelerate work against NTDs, accelerated programmatic action is crucial to moving the NTD agenda forward in the areas of innovation, research and development of new medicines, diagnostic and tools for control, monitoring and evaluation, access and logistics and advocacy and funding.

It is therefore important to maintain a vibrant collaboration with research institutions and academia that can advance work in these key areas, help align priorities, mobilize expertise and boost knowledge management to achieve the 2030 targets.

You can learn more about WHO Collaborating Centres by visiting WHO’s website and the global database.

Laboratory networks

Facilitating diagnosis, surveillance, monitoring and evaluation of NTD programmes

Due to the prevalence of NTDs and the specificity of some of these diseases, it is important to have a network of laboratories that can provide clinical data. Such data is crucial to implementation of control, prevention and elimination programmes as they can determine disease foci, changes in prevalence and the detection of drug resistance.

Furthermore, the management of clinical cases of NTDs depends on laboratories as these can provide diagnoses to identify cases. Laboratories also play an important role in the implementation of large-scale treatment programmes as they can evaluate the effectiveness of such interventions and support decisions on when to stop such treatments.

It is therefore important that a network of laboratories for NTDs be expanded to provide technical and scientific support for the diagnosis, surveillance, monitoring and evaluation of NTD programmes. Such a network can largely facilitate sharing of expertise and collaboration in areas such as training and quality assurance for diagnostics and research.

Skin NTDs Laboratory Network (Skin NTDs LABNET)

The Network aims at improving diagnosis of skin NTDs with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) among member laboratories through harmonized and standardized diagnostic procedures.

Calls for membership and for support

Prioritizing integrated, cross-cutting and cross-sectoral interventions

NTDs are both a cause and a consequence of poverty.

They cause immense suffering and inflict physical and intellectual impairments. In a nutshell, NTDs impact the economic productivity and development of several countries.

In May 2013, the World Health Assembly adopted resolution WHA 66.12 – calling on WHO Member States to intensify efforts to address NTDs and for the integration of NTD efforts into primary health services.

NTDs are also part of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, whose Target 3.3 calls for an end to the “epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and NTDs […]” by 2030.

The current NTD road map prioritizes integrated, cross-cutting and cross-sectoral interventions to achieve the various targets identified by 2030. This calls for an expansion of the global NTD community to newer constituencies and for more support.

The global partners community

Partners, implementing agencies and stakeholders

Partners, implementing agencies and stakeholders have been pivotal in global attempts to reduce the burden caused by NTDs addressing NTDs for over decades. The first Global Partners Meeting in 2007 marked ‘a turning point’ in bringing together scientists, industry, donors in upholding health equity. The second Global Partners Meeting in 2017 (morning and afternoon sessions) mobilized more funding and resources. It also provided a platform to discuss the priorities beyond 2020.

Several other initiatives such as the creation of the Neglected Tropical Disease NGO Network (NNN) in 2009 provided an opportunity to present a unified voice of non-governmental organizations and provided a platform to work together, coordinate actions and share knowledge.

Through collaboration, the NNN platform has produced several strategy documents that include the 2016 ‘BEST Framework’ and the 2019 WASH Toolkit.

Another landmark was the 2012 London Declaration on NTDs that saw immense commitment to tackle ten of the then 17 NTDs as well as the creation of Uniting to Combat NTDs (UTC) - a secretariat that has since played an important role in advocating for NTDs, particularly by initiating the 2018 NTD scorecard that tracked progress of five diseases towards 2020 goals. This exercise was adapted and integrated into WHO’s NTD website, together with a new set of progress dashboards dedicated to the road map 2021−2030. UTC has also been instrumental in coordinating the celebrations for World NTD Day and in facilitating the adoption of the “Kigali declaration on neglected tropical diseases”.

More recently, initiatives such as “NTD Affected Voices” (hosted by TIBA) have been established to amplify the voices of people living with morbidity, disability and disfigurement from neglected tropical diseases, as a contribution to Pillar 3 of the road map, which calls for a change in operating models and culture to facilitate country ownership of NTD control programmes.