USAID-Funded Neglected Tropical Disease Control Program to Reduce Disease in Togo and Cameroon

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.—The U.S. Agency for International Development through its Neglected Tropical Disease Control Program has chosen Health and Development International and Helen Keller International to serve as its newest country partners to coordinate and monitor the distribution of medicines in two countries in Africa.

Health and Development International, a U.S. non-profit organization based in Massachusetts, will receive a grant to provide support for neglected tropical disease control in Togo. Helen Keller International with headquarters in New York City will receive a second grant under the Neglected Tropical Disease Control Program for disease control in Cameroon.

The Neglected Tropical Disease Control Program is funded by USAID and managed by RTI International.

Health and Development International joins the following Neglected Tropical Disease Control Program's implementing partners and grantees: Liverpool Associates in Tropical Health, the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative at Imperial College London, International Trachoma Initiative, Malaria Consortium, IMA World Health, Helen Keller International and World Vision.

The program represents the largest global public-private partnership to integrate existing disease-specific treatment programs that expand care for five neglected tropical diseases to millions of the world's poorest people.

The diseases, lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis), schistosomiasis (snail fever), onchocerciasis (river blindness) blinding trachoma, and soil-transmitted helminthiasis (intestinal worms), are largely unknown in developed nations, but cause severe disability, suffering and social and economic marginalization in less-developed regions of the world. At least 1 billion people—one-sixth of the world's population—suffer from one or more neglected tropical diseases.

The Neglected Tropical Disease Control Program seeks to provide treatments of safe and effective drugs (most donated by the pharmaceutical industry) globally to more than 40 million people over five years, targeting countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America that have a high prevalence of the targeted diseases and have identified them as a national health priority.

To achieve this target in the most cost-efficient way, the program is helping Ministries of Health to build on the successes of their past disease-specific treatment programs by implementing innovative integrated approaches to combating these serious diseases.

Early in 2009, RTI International issued an Annual Program Statement soliciting applications from organizations working in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean to implement neglected disease control programs. Health and Development International and Helen Keller International are grant awardees under this Annual Program Statement.

With the addition of Togo and Cameroon, the NTD Control Program is now working in twelve countries—Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Haiti, Mali, Nepal, Niger, Sierra Leone, Southern Sudan and Uganda.

To date, this program has successfully delivered approximately 134 million treatments to more than 38 million people in seven countries, trained over 200,000 drug distributors, and has made significant strides toward achieving national-scale programs.

The program has benefited from more than 1 billion dollars worth of drugs donated by pharmaceutical companies Merck & Co. Inc., GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson.

About RTI International

RTI International is one of the world's leading research institutes, dedicated to improving the human condition by turning knowledge into practice. Our staff of more than 2,800 provides research and technical expertise to governments and businesses in more than 40 countries in the areas of health and pharmaceuticals, education and training, surveys and statistics, advanced technology, international development, economic and social policy, energy and the environment, and laboratory and chemistry services. For more information, visit www.rti.org.

©2009 Research Triangle Institute. RTI International is a trade name of Research Triangle Institute.

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