{"id":34016,"date":"2017-04-19T17:15:18","date_gmt":"2017-04-19T17:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/phenomenal-progress-in-fighting-tropical-diseases\/"},"modified":"2017-04-19T17:15:09","modified_gmt":"2017-04-19T17:15:09","slug":"phenomenal-progress-in-fighting-tropical-diseases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/phenomenal-progress-in-fighting-tropical-diseases\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Phenomenal’ progress in fighting tropical diseases"},"content":{"rendered":"

{There has been a record-breaking achievement in distributing tablets to fight neglected tropical diseases, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says.}<\/p>\n

The effort has ramped up since a key meeting in London five years ago.<\/p>\n

In 2015, one billion people worldwide were treated for at least one tropical disease.
\nCompanies have donated seven billion treatments since 2012.<\/p>\n

The World Health Organisation said improving water and sanitation was key to driving further progress.<\/p>\n

The London meeting resulted in a pledge to control or eliminate 10 neglected tropical diseases – including guinea worm, river blindness and trachoma – by 2020.<\/p>\n

Some 170,000 people die from one of the illnesses every year, but their biggest impact is disabling their sufferers.<\/p>\n

In an interview with BBC News, Bill Gates praised pharmaceutical companies for “doing their part in a great relationship” by donating treatment at “a phenomenal scale”.<\/p>\n

{{‘Fantastic story’}}<\/p>\n

Mr Gates said: “None of these diseases are getting worse. They are less neglected than they used to be.<\/p>\n

“We’re behind on some of the very ambitious goals which were set in London for 2020 – but the burden from all these diseases is getting better.<\/p>\n

“And for some, such as lymphatic filariasis (a mosquito-borne worm which causes limbs to swell), there’s been a big reduction in the population we need to treat – from 1.5 billion to one billion people.<\/p>\n

“Guinea worm is close to the end, with only 25 cases last year – though the unrest in South Sudan is making this work harder. But it’s not going to spread back in big numbers.<\/p>\n

“And we’ve had huge progress on sleeping sickness (a parasitic infection which can kill) – with cases now down to under 3,000. This is a fantastic story.<\/p>\n

“It’s a hard area to explain because it’s not just one disease – and there is a certain complexity to the individual diseases.”<\/p>\n

Five of the 10 diseases are tackled with big programmes to distribute multiple drugs, requiring lots of co-ordination to deliver and evaluate treatment in an efficient way.<\/p>\n

Mr Gates was speaking from a meeting in Geneva, where new commitments worth $812m (\u00a3641m) have been made by governments, drug companies and charitable bodies.<\/p>\n

He applauded the UK government’s announcement at the weekend that it would double support for fighting neglected tropical diseases.<\/p>\n

Mr Gates told me: “The UK is a critical donor. As somebody who’s very measurement-oriented, I find that partnering with the UK on these health-related areas is a great way to spend money and lift these countries up.<\/p>\n

“Anyone who gets to see these very tough diseases, and to see the benefit from these initiatives, would be absolutely convinced.”<\/p>\n

{{President Trump ‘pragmatic’}}<\/p>\n

Mr Gates, who had a meeting with President Trump last month, described the recent US funding cut to the United Nations Population Fund as “disappointing and unfortunate”.<\/p>\n

He added: “I feel quite confident that when Congress decides the overall aid budget, there won’t be the large cuts to foreign aid that would have been implied by the President’s proposed budget.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know that we’ll get to a situation where there are no cuts – but I think with the support of Congress, we’ll get close to where we’ve been in previous years.<\/p>\n

“I talked to the President about the critical role the US has played in the great progress on HIV, malaria and reproductive health – and in terms of how strong health systems can stop pandemics.<\/p>\n

“We got a glimpse of that with Ebola and Zika.
\n“I think I was able to get across the idea that global health matters even in an ‘America First’ framework.<\/p>\n

“The President has proved willing to be pragmatic since he’s been in office – so continued dialogue about development aid will be important.”<\/p>\n

\"More<\/figure>\n

Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{There has been a record-breaking achievement in distributing tablets to fight neglected tropical diseases, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says.} The effort has ramped up since a key meeting in London five years ago. In 2015, one billion people worldwide were treated for at least one tropical disease. Companies have donated seven billion treatments […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[100],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-africa","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34016"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34016"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}