Global partners renew support to eliminate Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs)
World Bank Group commits US$120m to fight, control and eliminate NTDs across Africa
The World Bank Group has committed US$120m from its International Development Association fund to support low-income countries fight, control and eliminate Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) across Africa.
The World Bank Group, which has a long history of supporting the fight against NTDs through the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control, has joined others that have contributed resources to combat NTDs since the launch of the London Declaration in 2012.
The new resources will be used in the West African Sahel, the Senegal River Basin and Madagascar in response to increasing demand from countries seeking integrated solutions to address more of these diseases.
The World Bank Group announced the partnership when global leaders met in Paris at the Institut Pasteur.
Two years after the launch of the London Declaration, the world is accelerating progress in combating 10 NTDs, including river blindness, Guinea worm, lymphatic filariasis, blinding trachoma, schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminths, leprosy, Chagas disease, visceral leishmaniasis and sleeping sickness.
Since 2012, 13 leading pharmaceutical companies, global health organisations, private foundations, and donor and endemic country governments have collectively put their weight behind a new push to reduce these diseases.
Several partners also announced new funding to tackle NTDs.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for example, is investing $50m to explore the feasibility of interrupting transmission and mitigating the risks of drug resistance, as well as the taking the most effective cross-sector approaches.
Through the French Agency for Development (AFD), France is renewing its commitment with a $2m grant to pharmaceutical company DNDi to develop new drugs against visceral leishmaniasis. This comes in addition to the $5m recently granted by AFD to DNDi for tackling malaria, sleeping sickness and paediatric HIV.
Pharmaceutical companies are also accelerating research and development efforts for new diagnostic tools and treatments in partnership with non-profit and other research and development organisations, as well as driving new implementation strategies.
