The Causes and Impacts of Neglected Tropical and Zoonotic Diseases: Opportunities for Integrated Intervention Strategies

Excerpt

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and neglected zoonotic diseases (NZDs) not only share features that allow them to persist in conditions of poverty, where they cluster and frequently overlap, but they also present common opportunities for effective, integrated, intervention and control strategies. Significant (though imperfect) control measures—including drugs and vaccines, improvements in water and sanitation, and vector control measures, employed singly or in combination—have been developed for most NTDs and NZDs. Policy makers and funding agencies have begun to acknowledge the public health and economic importance of the NTDs and NZDs, leading to increased support for the use of existing tools (such as the mass administration of drugs to combat several NTDs simultaneously) and the development of more effective integrated programs to control, and in some cases eradicate, these neglected diseases of poverty.

The Institute of Medicine's (IOM's) Forum on Microbial Threats hosted a two-day public workshop on September 21 and 22, 2010, in Washington, DC, to explore the scientific and policy dimensions of NTDs and NZDs. Through presentations and discussions, workshop participants discussed the origins and impacts of these diseases, both individually and as a collective phenomenon. They reviewed the influence of NTDs and NZDs on human and animal health and on economic productivity, discussed prospects for disease control and mitigation, and considered opportunities for medical diplomacy and global engagement to reduce the profound, yet long-hidden, consequences of neglected diseases.