SCI Foundation is now Unlimit Health. Learn more about what the change means for our ongoing efforts to eliminate neglected tropical diseases

Eliminating NTDs

 

A young girl smiles after receiving preventive treatment during a mass drug administration at her school in Côte d'Ivoire. Credit: SCI Foundation/Yao Armel Kouassi
A young girl smiles after receiving preventive treatment during a mass drug administration at her school in Côte d’Ivoire. Credit: Unlimit Health /Yao Armel Kouassi

NTDs have a multidimensional relationship with poverty. Some, like leprosy and lymphatic filariasis, lead to disability and disfigurement, subjecting those affected to stigma and exclusion and affecting their mental health and livelihoods. Others, such as parasitic infections can cause long term health and educational outcomes, making it difficult to earn a living and limiting productivity in school and at work.

Approaches to tackling NTDs, particularly those amenable to treatment with preventive chemotherapy, have focused on disease control in order to reduce prevalence and severity of infections. More recently, there has been a significant shift in global targets and consequently in NTD programmes, including for schistosomiasis towards sustaining the impact of control programmes and achieving elimination (overall, or as a public health problem, depending on country context). But this means placing impact, cross-cutting approaches, and country ownership at the heart of everything we do.

 

Cross-cutting approaches to beat NTDs

 

As outlined in the World Health Organization (WHO) NTD road map for 2021 – 2030, NTDs are caused by, and can be best tackled through, multiple pathways, interventions and sectors, including water, sanitation, environment, behaviour, vector control and veterinary public health. As such, the companion documents to the road map such as the global strategy on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and NTDs and the One Health approach for action against NTDs highlight to health ministries and partners how other essential components for elimination of NTDs can be achieved in practice.

 

Championing country ownership of NTD programmes

 

Health programmes must shift away from vertical funding and planning, and towards country ownership. However, having a context-specific, phased model, which aims to eliminate schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthiasis through a health systems strengthening approach, is key. Championing country ownership must therefore focus on:

  • Partnership: building trust, valuing diverse perspectives, and investing in local health systems
  • Alignment: being agile and avoiding setting up parallel structures in-country that may undermine country ownership, infrastructure, and decision making
  • Building expertise: lending technical expertise to enable rapid progress in-country

 

Our strategy

 

Image showing the front cover of 'Ending parasitic disease, together', the strategyOur five-year strategy focuses on impact, strengthening health systems, and country ownership; aligning with the three pillars of the World Health Organization’s road map for neglected tropical diseases 2021-2030.

Read the strategy

 

Find out more about our approaches to cross-cutting action and country ownership: