NPR Highlights Disease Prevention Work Imperiled by Funding Cuts: ‘We Were on the Brink of Elimination.”
A story from NPR highlights the risks to the remarkable progress made in the global fight against neglected tropical diseases.
The article includes commentary from Helen Keller Intl’s Vice President of Neglected Tropical Diseases, Dr. Angela Weaver, who warns that hard-won progress is now threatened by US government funding cuts.
“What’s frustrating is that, in so many places, we were on the brink of elimination,” says Angela. “The cuts to USAID not only jeopardize this progress, they also risk wasting the investments made to date.”
For nearly two decades, the US government partnered with countries around the world to combat neglected tropical diseases. The program achieved remarkable success ‒ delivering more than 3.3 billion treatments to over 1.7 billion people and helping 14 countries eliminate at least one disease.
Until recently, Helen Keller served as the lead implementing partner for this effort in six West African nations: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Sierra Leone.
The high-impact, cost-effective program relied on donated pharmaceuticals and the dedication of hundreds of thousands of community health workers to deliver preventive medicine through large-scale drug distribution campaigns.
“It was unbelievable,” Angela says. “What other program can go to a country and say, ‘Hey, we have all of these drugs to treat these terrible diseases you have ‒ and they’re free’?”
To see the program eliminated has been “devastating,” adds Angela. “This is about the most vulnerable people in the poorest parts of the world who just want access to basic medication.”
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