Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are chronic, disabling, disfiguring, and occasionally even deadly. Together, they trap individuals, families, and communities in a vicious cycle of poverty and disease. Fortunately, low-cost, effective treatments are available.
Benefits of treatment for NTDs include:
Improved maternal and child health
Treating parasitic infections cuts rates of sickness and death among mothers and their children by greatly reducing the prevalence of anemia and malnutrition—which causes 35% of the global disease burden in children under five.
Increased access to education
NTDs infect over 400 million school-aged children throughout the developing world. Treating them is the single most cost-effective way to boost school attendance, opening the door to growth and learning for the next generation of workers, thinkers and global leaders.
Strengthened worker productivity
Global NTD control will contribute hundreds of billions of dollars to developing economies worldwide through increased worker productivity. With a return on investment of 15-30%, NTD treatment is by far one of the best buys in public health.
Strengthened communities
Supporting treatment campaigns that directly involve communities in their own health care ensures sustainable success through the energy and commitment of local volunteers.
The Rapid-Impact Package
In treatment efforts on the ground, Global Network members use the rapid-impact package--a combination of four drugs that fights all seven of the most common NTDs.
Benefits of the rapid-impact package include:
- Include an inexpensive, safe and simple dose
- Implemented easily
- Streamlines NTD control efforts
- Decreases medicine delivery costs
- Promotes global heath partnerships
- Provides pro-poor and non-discriminatory health benefits
- Improves worker productivity
- Increases school attendance
- Contributes to the fight against poverty
Cost savings of the rapid-impact package
Armed with four drugs, three of which are donated, major treatment efforts can integrate control of the seven most common NTDs. At approximately 50 cents per person per year, integrated treatment efforts significantly reduce the morbidity, blindness, and skin disease caused by NTDs. Integrated NTD control programs are highly cost-effective, dramatically improving health, growth, physical performance, educational performance, cognitive function, productivity and future wage earnings.
