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NTDs Promote Poverty

 


Neglected diseases debilitate, deform, blind and kill.  While it is easy to understand the significance of the deaths due to NTDs, it is difficult to comprehend the chronic disability and illness caused by these diseases, along with their contribution to poverty.

The human toll from neglected diseases is better explained in terms of their disease burden, which is generally expressed using the term "DALYs".  DALYs refer to the future years of disability-free life that are lost as a result of either disability or premature death.  When measured in DALYs, NTDs account for approximately one-quarter of the global disease burden from HIV-AIDS.                                                                                  

 
  • 1 billion people infected, 2 billion people at-risk in tropical and subtropical countries.
  • Those most affected are the poorest, often living in remote rural areas or urban slums.
  • The diseases flourish best under conditions linked to poverty – unsafe water, poor sanitation, substandard housing, reservoirs for insects and other disease vectors.
  • Children are disproportionably affected and can live with the consequences their whole lives long.
  • The consequences: severe physical pain, irreversible disability, gross disfigurement and, in some cases, death.
  • Social stigmatization and discrimination compound these consequences.
  • 100% of low income countries are affected simultaneously by more than 5 disease

The Impact of NTDs

HEALTH

  • Soil transmitted helminths (STHs) cause stunting, inhibited cognitive ability and decreased school performance in children
  • STHs cause anemia; the risk of dying during pregnancy in anemic women is 3.5 times higher than in non-anemic women
  • Deworming and resulting reduction in anemia improve the chances of surviving severe malaria

ECONOMIC

  • The disabling effects of NTDs have an enormous impact on the work force and productivity of communities; hookworm is estimated to cause a 40% reduction in future wage earnings
  • In Kenya, deworming could raise per-capita earning by 30%
  • In India, Lymphatic Filariasis causes a $1.5 billion loss in GNP per year
  • In Japan, successful deworming programs in the 1950's are one of the reasons for their subsequent economic boom      

 

 

EDUCATIONAL

  • Deworming is the most effective means of improving school attendance
  • Children with hookworm have shown a 23%drop in school attendance
  • Worm infections cause 16 million cases of mental retardation in children in developing countries
  • Worm infections cause 200 million years of lost primary schooling

SOCIAL

  • The disfiguring qualities of NTDs cause people to be heavily stigmatized and often ostracized from the community.