Integrated Implementation of Programs Targeting Neglected Tropical Diseases through Preventive Chemotherapy: Proving the Feasibility at National Scale

1 Afflicting more than one billion persons, one-sixth of the world's population, these diseases cause severe disfigurement, disability, and blindness. The NTDs are among the leading per- petuators of poverty because they significantly diminish eco- nomic productivity in affected adults and because they impair the intellectual and physical development of the next genera- tion in disease-endemic areas, setting already vulnerable chil- dren on a path to lifelong disability that reinforces a cycle of poverty. 1 Abstract. In 2006, the United States Agency for International Development established the Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) Control Program to facilitate integration of national programs targeting elimination or control of lym- phatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminthiasis and blinding trachoma. By the end of year 3, 12 countries were supported by this program that focused first on disease mapping where needed, and then on initiat- ing or expanding disease-specific programs in a coordinated/integrated fashion. The number of persons reached each year increased progressively, with a cumulative total during the first three years of 98 million persons receiving 222 million treatments with donated drugs valued at more than $1.4 billion. Geographic coverage increased substantially for all these infections, and the program has supported training of more than 220,000 persons to implement the programs. This current experience of the NTD Control Program demonstrates clearly that an integrated approach to control or eliminate these five neglected diseases can be effective at full national scale.