Dr Caroline Anstey of the World Bank said: “These are not neglected diseases -– but rather diseases of neglected people.”

The aim is to eliminate Guinea worm, leprosy, lymphatic filariasis, blinding trachoma and sleeping sickness by 2020, and control schistosomiasis, river blindness, soil-transmitted helminthes, Chagas disease and visceral leishmaniasis. These diseases cause misery, suffering, disfigurement and death -– and when they don’t kill the seriously affect the lives of many people.

At the event today, $785 million dollars was pledged to support research efforts into the diseases, and to strengthen distribution to make sure the vital drugs get to the people who need them.

Bill Gates said that it was “thrilling to go from an idea a year ago to this milestone event with ambitious goals.”

You can read more in depth information about the 10 diseases, and watch a recording of today’s event at unitingtocombatNTDs.org.

Here’s a great infographic that explains the problem and solution (click to enlarge):

When I visited Cambodia with Johnson & Johnson for a deworming day at Poek Ho (waterfall) school in Kandal Province, I was struck by the sheer number of students who lined up to receive mebendazole. These children showed up to receive treatment for intestinal parasites with mebendazole donated by Johnson & Johnson. They also received a meal, which for some was likely the only meal they received that day.

These children were at particular risk of infection with intestinal worms because worms thrive in the warm climate. The lack of access to sanitation facilities in Cambodia doesn’t help much, either. In America, it is hard for us to imagine that more than 1.2 billion people living in developing countries are infected with intestinal worms. Worms are most prevalent in children between the ages of 6 to 14 and can lead to malnutrition, robbing them of the energy they need to learn and grow.

Schools provide CWW and our partners with a means to distribute the mebendazole to the children who need it, and schools also provide a platform to teach STH prevention by promoting healthy behavior within the classroom. Helen Keller International, our partners in Cambodia, works to integrate deworming prevention and hygiene into school programs and curriculum.

Even though schools provide a platform for reaching children in Cambodia, many of the poorest children do not have the resources and ability to attend school, and therefore, are left out of these deworming days. Strategies need to be developed to target this vulnerable population, such as inviting non-enrolled children to attend on “deworming day” and working with community leaders to identify and treat these children.

Treatment, hygiene education and access to sanitation and clean water are all components needed to bring STH infection under control, and together, governments, NGOs and other groups can come up with better solutions to reach this vulnerable population and find ways to prevent and treat intestinal worms.

There are many health challenges that children face throughout the world. But for intestinal worms, there is a solution that greatly improves a child’s capacity to learn and grow. A dose of medication, along with hygiene education and access to sanitation, are vital steps forward in improving a child’s life.

Read more about CWW’s work to distribute mebendazole from Johnson & Johnson to school age children as part of the Cambodia’s national deworming program.

We are in an exciting new era of vaccine development. After a decade or more in which major pharmaceutical companies left the vaccine manufacturing space for more lucrative opportunities, there has been a resurgence, such that major companies have either returned or entered into this market.

Yet despite this time of great opportunity, there is still an urgent need to develop vaccines to combat the neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)—which primarily affect the world’s poorest people (the “bottom billion”) residing in developing countries—and to increase access to affordable vaccines for diseases and infections like Human papillomavirus (HPV), rotavirus, and pneumococcal disease.

The effects of these diseases and infections range from iron-deficiency anemia and inner ear infections in the case of hookworm infection and pneumococcal disease, to cervical cancer and death for HPV and rotavirus. Except for hookworm infection for which a vaccine does not currently exist (more on that later); pneumococcal disease, HPV, and rotavirus are all preventable with vaccines. Vaccines have the power to save lives if individuals are able to access and afford them.

For NTDs, the vaccine development sector climate is a bit different. Because NTDs almost exclusively affect the world’s poorest people, there is no traditional market for NTD vaccines. Through the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other philanthropies, however, the Sabin Vaccine Institute has established an innovative product development partnership (PDP) to develop vaccines for hookworm infection and schistosomiasis.

At the Sabin Vaccine Institute we sometimes refer to such vaccines as “antipoverty vaccines” because of their ability to both improve economic development as well as health. NTDs have been shown to represent a major reason why the poorest people in developing countries remain trapped in poverty.

On the flipside, once vaccines are developed they need to be affordable and easily accessible by the individuals who need them. Sabin has taken two interesting approaches to addressing these issues. Our international advocacy and education team aims to raise awareness on, and increase utilization of, both traditional and new and underutilized vaccines. Sabin’s Sustainable Immunization Financing (SIF) Program takes the issue of affordability one step further by working with developing country governments to help them increase their share and amount of immunization funding.

Another innovative approach to ensuring that vaccines are affordable and accessible is working with the in-country health institutions to develop vaccines, test them on endemic populations, and directly transfer technology and build capacity in-country. Our hookworm and schistosomiasis vaccines are being developed in collaboration with Brazilian government institutions including FIOCRUZ and Instituto Butantan to ensure that the future vaccines will be directly tailored to, and accessible by, the individuals who are suffering from the NTD.

While the vaccine development sector is certainly experiencing a time of renewed interest and innovation, it’s easy to understand how complex the atmosphere can remain even after a vaccine has been developed. We have a tremendous opportunity to tackle these issues during the “golden age” of vaccines.

According to Erin Finucane of the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases:

George Washington University students swept both the individual and group segments of the contest, which raised $12,195.31 total.

Manuel Claros, who raised $1256, will receive a 4-week long paid internship with the Global Network. The team from GWU Medical School, who raised $3892.81, will receive a matching donation in their honor from actress and Global Network Ambassador Alyssa Milano, doubling their impact to $7785.62.

Check this press release for more background on the contest and how George Washington University pulled it off.

At ONE, we recognize that there is no silver bullet to fighting poverty in Africa and across the developing world; similarly there is no one intervention that will ensure that those living in poverty can enjoy good and sustainable health. Yet the scale of the NTD infections around the world—more than one billion people are infected—also suggests that a growing US financial commitment to NTD control means we can make a cross-cutting impact on the diseases that are perhaps the most common denominator for the world’s poorest people.

The NTD story is a remarkable one: thanks to unprecedented donation programs from major pharmaceutical companies, we can treat all seven of the most common NTDs for just 50 cents per person, per year. Hundreds of millions of people have benefitted from this simple, cost-effective treatment; 546 million people were treated for one NTD (elephantiasis) alone in 2007! Yet these diseases still remain largely unknown. Advocacy groups including the Global Network work to promote global awareness, and the Gates Foundation dedicates substantial funding to support the creation of regional financing mechanisms to absorb new investments for NTDs. Still, many leaders across the public and private sectors have a difficult time advocating and providing funding for diseases with bizarre names like “schistosomiasis.”

That’s where high level leadership comes in. Though President Bush was better-known for his landmark investments in HIV/AIDS, he also made the US’ first major commitment to NTDs, recommending that $350 million over five years be dedicated to NTD control and elimination efforts. With the Global Health Initiative and now in his budget, President Obama has transitioned and grown President Bush’s work on NTDs, and has signaled that the US can be a leader in NTD control efforts, including a push for elimination targets around lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, and leprosy.

The magnitude of NTDs is so great—approximately one in six people worldwide are infected—that the problem can seem daunting or intractable. But particularly at a point in which funding for other global accounts was not as high as we hoped, ONE members can applaud President Obama for his expanded commitment to NTD control and for ensuring that the US can one day claim a major role in the elimination of many of these horrific diseases.

We’ll have more analysis of President Obama’s FY2011 Budget soon.

The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development took on this issue of neglected diseases last Friday at their daylong event, “Neglected Diseases in the Developing World: Progress, Current Challenges and Promising Approaches.” Held in the Dirksen Senate Building, the event featured a distinguished group of speakers, including representatives from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institute of Health (NIH), Duke University, BIO Ventures for Global Health and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Christopher Milner, Associated Director of the Tufts Center for Drug Development, started the morning by introducing Mary Moran, Director of the Health Policy Division of the George Institute. Ms. Moran spoke about the issue of obtaining global funding for research and development to treat neglected diseases. She explained that many countries and organizations are participating in the development of new neglected disease products, which is a welcome and relatively new phenomenon. However, there is a dire need, particularly during the economic crisis, for the broadening of funding efforts so that all diseases receive the attention they deserve.

Joshua Cohen of the Tufts University Center for the Study of Drug Development also took the floor to discuss progress in neglected disease drug development. Mr. Cohen emphasized that financial support for neglected disease research is very lopsided, with the majority of funding flowing into HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. He also stressed that a comprehensive approach to addressing neglected diseases should include not only effective drug development, but also attention to health infrastructure, affordability, and improved accessibility.

The morning ended with a panel discussion in which public and private sector experts discussed how to prioritize and facilitate the discovery and development of new medical products for neglected diseases. The panelists also highlighted public health impacts and current efforts to address this global threat.

The event provided a unique opportunity to hear leaders from a variety of fields share their views on both the progress and challenges surrounding the development and distribution of products for combating neglected diseases in the developing world.

-Robyn Mitchell, Hallie Tosher, & Jen Fraser

A couple of excerpts:

“A new survey by the World Health Organization shows that drug-resistant tuberculosis is even more widespread than had been feared — on average, it’s present in 5% of new TB cases. That’s 500,000 drug-resistant cases a year. If most Americans aren’t concerned by this, it’s because they don’t yet understand that drug-resistant tuberculosis is no longer a disease that threatens mainly HIV and AIDS patients and the Third World poor. It threatens us all. Worldwide, only 8% of TB cases occur in HIV/AIDS patients…

Even after the panic last year caused by Andrew Speaker, the jet-setting honeymooner found to have MDR TB, funding to stop the disease has lagged. The WHO, which gets its money from United Nations member states, estimates it needs $4.8 billion for global TB control. But despite increases in funding from the U.S., Britain and private donors, it still faces a $2.5-billion shortfall.

You can read the full piece here.

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

Though not killers on the scale of HIV/AIDS and malaria, the NTDs – a group of infections with names like ‘schistosomiasis,’ ‘onchocerciasis,’ and ‘lymphatic filariasis’ that are a mouthful even for those of us who have made a career of fighting them – cause more disability and premature death in Africa than either malaria or tuberculosis, according to the World Health Organization. As a group, the NTDs are the most common infections of the world’s at least one billion poorest inhabitants, affecting 500 million in Africa (compared to 30 million for HIV). Simply put, no progress can be made in development without addressing these infections as well as the “big three” (HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria) which so preoccupy politicians.

Even if you have traveled in the countries hardest hit by NTDs, you may not be familiar with them. They are hidden infections that thrive in the poorest rural and urban populations, often causing grotesquely swollen limbs, distended bellies full of worms, blindness, and mental retardation, all of which lead to severe social stigmatization. They leave adults unable to work, keep kids out of school, add to rates of infant death and low birth weight, and can speed up transmission of the HIV virus, all at alarming rates.

There is good news, however. A package of medications to treat seven of the most common NTDs is available for only 50 cents per person per year – an almost negligible price compared to treatment costs for other major infectious diseases (for example, $400 – 1200 per year to treat a case of HIV). Given this low cost and the hugely positive impacts of treatment, providing medication for NTDs is one of the single most cost-effective investments we can make with our international aid dollars.

While the President’s commitment to African health and development is admirable, we must be careful not to focus solely on the “big three” to the exclusion of other equally devastating diseases. Control of NTDs is within our grasp, and if we truly wish to invest in the future of African development, we must take action now.

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

-Professor David Molyneux, Director of the Lymphatic Filariasis Support Centre based at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and current President of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene