World neglected tropical disease round-up

A number of campaigns against what are termed neglected tropical diseases (Marketletters passim) appear to be gathering momentum with several initiatives involving drugmakers and international organizations. The scale of the problems facing health authorities worldwide was illustrated in a recent article in the Public Library of Science's Neglected Tropical Diseases journal, which reported that, in Latin America and the Caribbean, these conditions are the most common among 200 million of the poorest people.

Among the diseases listed in the PLoS study, there are nearly 10 million cases of Chagas disease alone, with tens of millions of intestinal worm infections. Peter Hotez, president of the USA-headquartered Sabin Vaccine Institute, who co-authored the Latin American report, said: "our findings indicate that the combined disease burden of NTDs in Latin America and the Caribbean appears to exceed that of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Yet we have the proven, effective, low-cost tools at our fingertips to eliminate at least three of these devastating diseases."