The
World Health Organization’s (WHO) Regional Office for Africa (AFRO) today
launched a major new partnership to help African countries reduce the burden of
neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).
The
Expanded Special Project for Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases (ESPEN)
will provide national NTD programmes with technical and fundraising support to
help them control and eliminate the five NTDs with the greatest burden on the
continent, which collectively affect hundreds of millions of people.
Dr.
Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s Regional Director for Africa, said: “We’re excited
to launch ESPEN to scale up the work against these terrible diseases. We know
what needs to be done to beat NTDs; ESPEN will make sure national NTD
programmes have the data, expertise and financial resources they need to
accelerate the fight against these diseases.”
NTDs
are a group of diseases that place a constant and heavy burden primarily on the
poorest, most marginalized and isolated communities in the world. Forty percent
of the global burden of NTDs is in Africa, where these diseases destroy lives,
prevent children from going to school, and keep communities in cycles of
poverty. A study by Erasmus University projects that reaching WHO’s 2020 goals
for these diseases would generate an estimated $565 billion in productivity
gains by 2030.
Many of the tools necessary to control and
eliminate NTDs already exist, and the drugs necessary to treat and prevent
these diseases are donated by pharmaceutical companies – in 2015 alone, 1.5
billion NTD treatments were donated, largely to African countries. ESPEN will
help provide African countries with the technical and financial capacity to use
these tools and reach every community in need.
Hon. Prof. Isaac Folorunsho Adewole, Federal
Minister of Health, Nigeria, said: “To
beat NTDs, we need the right tools and data to help us get treatments to the
people who need them. This special project will help governments across Africa
provide a healthier future for our people.”
ESPEN will run from 2016 to 2020, and is
designed to continue momentum toward the control and elimination targets
established by the World Health Organization and endorsed in the London
Declaration on NTDs in January 2012. In 2014, two dozen African countries
committed to strengthen their commitment to NTDs under the Addis Ababa
Commitment on NTDs.
The launch of ESPEN took place at an event on
the side lines of the 69th Annual World Health Assembly in Geneva.
Mr. Ken Gustavsen, Executive Director,
Corporate Responsibility at MSD, said: “Significant progress has been made
over the past three decades in reaching communities affected by NTDs, and now
we’re on the cusp of controlling and potentially eliminating many of these
diseases. ESPEN will help us get to that finish line across the African
continent.”
The
project will be hosted and managed by WHO AFRO in partnership with African
governments, donors, non-governmental organizations, and pharmaceutical
companies ensuring a coordinated response to fight these diseases.
The U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID) is announcing today a US$4m commitment to support ESPEN. USAID joins
the Kuwait Fund, the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID), the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the END Fund, the Arab Bank for Economic
Development in Africa, MSD, Sightsavers, and other organizations, which are
together providing a cumulative US$11.4 million in seed funding. Ultimately, in
order to sustain these investments and recent progress, greater financial and
political commitment from African governments will be necessary to ensure that
these five diseases are controlled and eventually eliminated.
Dr. Ariel Pablos-MĂ©ndez, Assistant
Administrator for Global Health, Child and Maternal Survival Coordinator at
USAID said: “The fight against
these disabling diseases is a global health best-buy. ESPEN will help
countries accelerate progress against these debilitating diseases and,
potentially, unlock increasing domestic resources to reach vulnerable
populations. This partnership and other NTD efforts will help end diseases of
extreme poverty in this generation.”
ESPEN has been established following the
closure of the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC), which
during its 20-year mandate made a major contribution to the reduction in
onchocerciasis (river blindness) in Africa. The special project will maintain
the gains made over the past two decades by integrating this approach across
five diseases: onchocerciasis, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis,
soil-transmitted helminths and trachoma.
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