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Neglected Tropical Diseases – Easy to Treat, but Not Glamorous

Posted on February 26, 2008 by Amy VanderZanden
Topics: Health
Malaria patient. Photo: <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/ashclements/28164958/">Ashley Jonathan Clements (flickr) </a>
Malaria patient. Photo: Ashley Jonathan Clements (flickr)

Josh Ruxin, a community health expert who has spent the last several years living in Rwanda, explains that while the majority of tropical diseases seem archaic and too complex to think about for the average person, trachoma, river blindness, hookworm and the like are devastating over a billion people on the planet. Neglected Tropical Diseases, or NTD’s, are inexpensive to treat in comparison to HIV/AIDS, but don’t seem to carry the same social appeal.

“Together, the NTD’s produce just as much disability as the better known diseases and are a major reason why the poorest people in Africa cannot escape poverty…The great irony is that NTD’s can be effectively treated and controlled for a fraction of the cost of these other diseases.”

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