Neglected Tropical Diseases
Critical to Helen Keller Intl’s efforts to prevent blindness and malnutrition is our work in the control, elimination and morbidity management of neglected tropical diseases. Our integrated neglected tropical disease control program uses mass drug administration to address onchocerciasis and trachoma (conditions that lead to blindness), schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminths (conditions that lead to malnutrition), and lymphatic filariasis (a condition that leads to morbidity and disability).
Morbidity Management and Disability Prevention. From 2015-2019 Helen Keller’s Morbidity Management and Disability Prevention Project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development, supported countries to provide high-quality treatment and care for people suffering from the debilitating effects of trachoma and lymphatic filariasis, complementing other major initiatives supporting disease elimination through mass drug administration. With activities in Ethiopia, Cameroon and Burkina Faso and in the global community, the Helen Keller managed project was a key player in the global push to eliminate trachoma and lymphatic filariasis as public health problems by 2020.
- Read about the morbidity management and disability prevention project’s results, which have been used by the World Health Organization, among other groups working in morbidity management and disability prevention related to trachoma and lymphatic filariasis. Helen Keller continues to support countries like Mali and Niger to provide morbidity management and disability prevention services to prevent blindness from trachoma and manage the morbidity and disability caused by lymphatic filariasis. Helen Keller has been engaged in this work for over a decade.
Neglected Tropical Diseases and Nutrition. There are strong and direct relationships between undernutrition and infectious diseases, including neglected tropical diseases. Learn how nutrition is an important component of integrated programs to control these diseases:
- The role of nutrition in integrated programs to control neglected tropical diseases. BMC – Medicine (2012)
Neglected Tropical Diseases, Mass Drug Administration, and Success Stories. Helen Keller is committed to working with national governments, the World Health Organization, technical partners, and donor governments to control and eliminate these diseases in countries affected by these maladies. Read about Helen Keller’s successes in working closely with national partners in Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Mali and Cameroon to support national mass drug administration programs:
- Guinea’s neglected tropical diseases program treats 4.4 million people in 14 days, despite COVID-19. USAID’s Act to End NTDs | West program (2020)
- Schistosomiasis in school age children in Burkina Faso after a decade of preventive chemotherapy. Bulletin of the World Health Organization (2016)
- Successful Control of Soil-Transmitted Helminthiasis in School Age Children in Burkina Faso and an Example of Community-Based Assessment via Lymphatic Filariasis Transmission Assessment Survey. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases (2016)
- First evidence of lymphatic filariasis transmission interruption in Cameroon: Progress towards elimination. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases (2017)
- Control of soil-transmitted helminths in school age children in Sierra Leone after a decade of preventive chemotherapy intervention. Infectious Diseases of Poverty (2019)
- Prevalence of trachoma in Kayes region of Mali eight years after stopping mass drug administration. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases (2018)
News for Africa is Helen Keller’s monthly electronic newsletter which aims to disseminate state-of-the-art research and policy papers to scientists, program planners, policy makers, and opinion leaders working in the field of NTD control in Africa. NTD News for Africa is published in English and, with the generous support of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine Neglected Tropical Diseases, in French. To subscribe to this newsletter, please click on Subscribe Here for English or Subscribe Here for French.