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Gates Foundation gives $46.7 million to fight neglected tropical diseases
Five projects aim to demonstrate that an integrated approach can reduce the burden of neglected tropical diseases in Africa.
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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has donated five grants totaling $46.7 million to support efforts to coordinate and integrate programs to fight against neglected tropical diseases in developing countries.
Neglected tropical diseases such as trachoma and hookworm can cause severe disability in people in some developing countries. These diseases affect more than 500 million people in Africa. Globally, more than 2 billion people are infected with one or more of the parasites or bacteria that cause neglected tropical diseases.
“Today, most control and treatment programs for neglected tropical diseases focus on a single disease, but people in tropical regions usually face more than one serious disease threat,” said Regina Rabinovich, MD, MPH, director of infectious diseases at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “An integrated approach that addresses multiple diseases at once could reach those in need more efficiently and help save more lives.”
The overall goal of the grants is to develop evidence that controlling neglected tropical diseases in an integrated way has a greater impact on these diseases than the disease-specific strategies currently in use.
The organizations receiving the funds are: the Task Force for Child Survival and Development ($11.7 million); the International Trachoma Initiative ($10 million); The Carter Center ($10 million); the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative at Imperial College London ($10 million); and WHO ($5 million).
Controlling tropical diseases
Purchasing and delivering drugs to control five of the most devastating neglected tropical diseases could cost as little as $0.50 per person per year if existing drug delivery programs are brought together, according to a release. Neglected tropical diseases such as trachoma (blinding eye infection), soil-transmitted helminths (hookworm, ascaris, trichuris), onchocerciasis (river blindness), schistosomiasis (snail fever), and lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis) can be treated safely and effectively with single-dose drugs, given once or twice a year to populations at risk.
Studies during the past decade have shown that low-cost interventions can greatly reduce the burden of neglected tropical diseases, especially when combined with measures to improve water and sanitation and to control the organisms that transmit disease. The grants also address the greatest remaining challenge — to bring together all the different disease-specific interventions already underway and expand programs to reach all who are in need.
The five projects aim to demonstrate that an integrated approach improves the performance and efficiency of programs, enhances their coverage, promotes sustainability, and reduces the burden caused by neglected tropical diseases in Africa.
- The Task Force for Child Survival and Development will use its $11.7 million grant to coordinate operational research aimed at ensuring the success of the ongoing Global Program to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (LF). This six-year-old program faces important challenges to assuring long-term program success and LF elimination. Grant funds will support coordinated research initiatives in more than 20 countries to refine epidemiologic and immunologic tools for enhancing programmatic decision-making, to evaluate potential supplementary vector control and therapeutic strategies for use in especially difficult areas, and to identify innovative, sustainable financing strategies for LF and neglected tropical diseases, focused global health programs.
- The Schistosomiasis Control Initiative will use its $10 million grant to support its core activities at Imperial College London, and to develop and implement a health package that can deliver treatment in Tanzania. The grant will assist in co-funding the United States Agency for International Development neglected tropical diseases control project to encourage integration of measures to combat diseases in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger and Uganda. Up to 40 million people will receive the package of drugs over the next few years.
- The International Trachoma Initiative will use its $10 million grant to increase the sustainability and scalability of national neglected disease control programs on a country and global level. ITI and partners plan to conduct a study to determine the efficacy of an integrated disease treatment program in Mali for trachoma and LF compared to single disease initiatives. The aim of this project is to provide evidence of the effectiveness of combined interventions, as well as the costs, benefits and impact of integration on the health system and target population. Concurrently, ITI will strengthen advocacy and resource development efforts on behalf of trachoma and other core neglected diseases.
- The Carter Center will use its $10 million grant to expand its integrated disease prevention assistance in central Nigeria. These prevention efforts are currently aimed at fighting river blindness, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis, and trachoma. The Center will expand the scope of its activities to add Vitamin A supplementation for young children to the distribution system, as well as further pioneer distribution of long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent both lymphatic filariasis and malaria. In southeastern Nigeria, where infection with the parasite Loa loa limits treatment options for lymphatic filariasis, the Center will study the feasibility of eliminating lymphatic filariasis with long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets, and integrating with the malaria program. The Center plans to measure the sustainability, cost-effectiveness, and impact of its disease integration efforts, while promoting expansion of integrated efforts throughout Nigeria. The Center will work in collaboration with the Nigeria Ministry of Health, Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and the CDC.
- WHO will use its $5 million grant to support and coordinate integration of neglected tropical diseases programs on a global level. It aims to set standards and provide support for integration globally, including a global platform to assess progress, an integrated data management, monitoring and evaluation system, a renewed effort to improve access to currently non-donated drugs, and the development of common tools such as the recently released guide Preventive Chemotherapy in Human Helminthiasis. – by Tara Grassia