They say timing is everything. Fewer than 24 hours after my colleague David Molyneux’s call to action for increased attention to neglected tropical disease (NTD) control appeared on this blog, President Bush has unveiled a $350 million commitment to fight NTDs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America over the next five years.

This commitment represents a historic step forward in the US’s global health strategy, and a major victory for the NTD advocacy movement. I applaud President Bush for taking leadership on this issue and encouraging other G-8 members, as well as public and private partners and philanthropic foundations, to follow suit.

There is no doubt that the integrated control of NTDs (providing treatment for up to seven of the most common of these infections in one package) will have a rapid and long-lasting impact on almost every facet of life for the billions who have long suffered these debilitating and disabling infections in silence. Together with other effective health and sanitation strategies, NTD control has the potential to unlock economic and educational growth (not to mention improvements in physical and mental well-being) at never-before-seen levels throughout the developing world.

This is truly a cause for great hope. The President’s funding commitment, together with money from Bill and Melinda Gates and other partners such as Geneva Global, will cover almost half of the estimated NTD funding gap over the next seven years. If President Bush’s plea to other donors is successful, perhaps we will after all consign these diseases to history.

For more information on NTDs and to join the fight, visit the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases.

-Dr. Peter Hotez is President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and Executive Director of the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, based in Washington, DC

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Neglected Tropical Diseases, Bush Africa Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.