These are impressive figures, and the expense is trivial compared to the anti-retroviral drugs needed to treat AIDS, which cost more than US$200 annually and must be taken every day, not every year. Given that roughly 1 billion people are infected with NTDs, compared to 40 million with HIV, and that the drugs targeting them are donated and actually prevent disease and stop transmission, treating NTDs is a major opportunity to lift populations out of poverty.
The main challenge is to convince policymakers that there is more to reducing poverty than focusing on just three diseases. In fact, NTDs are “low-hanging fruit.” If the international community is serious about alleviating poverty and achieving development goals, tackling the diseases so directly associated with economic misery should be a fundamental objective.
We can easily meet that objective, because we have drugs that are effective, free (or very cheap), that have low delivery costs, and that provide add-on benefits. Now is the time to rethink our public-health investments and messaging, and evaluate whether we are getting the best value for our donor dollars, or whether we should do much more to tackle diseases that we have so far largely ignored.
David Molyneux is a professor emeritus at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
RSS