Neglected Tropical Diseases Affect More Than A Billion People by Sharon L. Wallenberg

Neglected tropical diseases (NTD) are diseases that cause illness for more than one billion people globally, effecting the world’s most economically challenged people, disproportionally affecting women and children.  NTD’s are painful, debilitating, impair development, and cause 170,000 deaths worldwide annually, usually to women and children.

 NTDs cause deformed legs, blindness, social isolation.  Children suffer from

malnutrition, cognitive impairment, stunted growth, and cannot attend school. Disability makes working extremely difficult, resulting in unavoidable poverty.

 

The heart-breaking part of the Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) is that they are relatively easy and inexpensive to prevent and treat.  Some NTDs can be eliminated with safe and effective medicines administered annually or biannually.  

While relatively inexpensive annual medication can save lives and prevent permanent disability from Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) in the developing nations, individuals in the developed nations are suffering from, and expensively medicating, the preventable Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) of heart disease, diabetes, some cancers, and obesity.

Moving away from the unsustainable meat, dairy and water animal diet would eliminate methane which causes global warming, waste which causes air, land and water pollution, deforestation, and most importantly, eliminate Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) which could free up resources to save innocent lives and eliminate the Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD).