NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES
Figure A.8.3.
Reported number of people requiring interventions against NTDs, by country, 2014a
SDG Target 3.3
By 2030, end the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other communicable
diseases
Indicator 3.3.5: Number of people requiring interventions against neglected tropical diseases
SITUATION
Key interventions against neglected tropical
diseases (NTDs) include mass treatment;
individual treatment and care; water, sanitation
and hygiene (WASH); vector control; and veterinary
public health, as well as supportive interventions
to strengthen health systems.
The end of the epidemic will be first evidenced
by reductions in the number of people requiring
mass or individual treatment and care, as diseases
are eliminated or controlled. Treatment and care
are the interventions covered in this section.
Some of the other wide-ranging interventions
listed above can be addressed by SDG targets
and indicators for UHC (Target 3.8) and access
to water and sanitation (Targets 6.1 and 6.2).
NTDs: lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis,
schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminthiases
(STH) and trachoma. More than 2.7 million people
needed individual treatment and care for other
NTDs such as Buruli ulcer, dengue, guinea-worm
disease, human African trypanosomiasis (HAT),
leprosy, the leishmaniases and yaws (Fig. A.8.2).
ACHIEVING THE 2030 TARGET
In 2014, 50 countries had achieved national
elimination or were under surveillance for
elimination of at least one NTD. For example,
the number of people requiring mass treatment
for lymphatic filariasis has decreased from a
high of 1.4 billion in 2011 to 1.1 billion in 2014.
In 2014, at least 1.7 billion people required
mass or individual treatment and care for NTDs
in 185 countries.1 Of these, 1.1 billion were
in lower-middle-income countries (Fig. A.8.1).
The 520 million people requiring treatment
in low-income countries represented 60% of
their populations.
For NTDs targeted for elimination or eradication
in World Health Assembly (WHA) resolutions,2
ending the epidemic implies a reduction in the
number of people requiring treatment and care
towards zero. The control of other NTDs means a
reduction in the frequency of intervention. Taken
together, existing WHA-endorsed targets should
lead to a 90% reduction in the average number
of people requiring treatment and care per year.
Almost all of these 1.7 billion people required
mass treatment for at least one of the following
Reducing the number of people requiring
treatment and care does not depend solely
Figure A.8.1.
Reported number of people requiring interventions against NTDs, by country income group, 2014a
Lower middle
income
Low income
Upper middle
income
High income
l
10
l
100
l
1000
l
10 000
l
100 000
Number in thousands (logarithmic scale)
Horizontal line reflects 95% uncertainty intervals around missing values in 2014.
a
Figure A.8.2.
Reported number of people requiring interventions against NTDs, by disease, 2014a,b
l
1 000 000
on the actions of the health sector: controlling
STH requires universal access to water and
sanitation; controlling dengue requires vector
control as an adaptive response to urbanization
and climate change.
Disaggregation by disease will be an important
element in monitoring successes and failures.
EQUITY
People requiring interventions against NTDs
are poor and marginalized. Monitoring NTDs
and intervention coverage is therefore key to
ensuring that the least well off are prioritized
from the beginning of the path towards UHC and
universal access to safe water and sanitation.3,4
Indeed, NTD monitoring can help the health and
WASH sectors to achieve their universal access
goals by better targeting the poorest and most
marginalized populations.
DATA GAPS
Gaps in NTD reporting systems include the
number of people requiring treatment and
care for dengue in the WHO African Region,
for Chagas disease and for zoonotic NTDs, as
well as the number of new cases requiring and
requesting surgery or rehabilitation. Based on
reporting systems for donated medicines, data
disaggregation by sex and by urban or rural area
is optional or dependent upon which diseases
are co-endemic. Some disaggregation by age
is available.
Figures A.8.1 to A.8.3 present conservative
estimates of the number of people requiring
treatment and care for NTDs, assuming perfect
co-endemicity of some NTDs at the level of the
smallest available unit and age group. By 2030,
improved co-endemicity data and models will
be used to validate this approach. Any changes
over time in case detection rates will have to be
taken into account when making comparisons
to the baseline.
REFERENCES
Unless otherwise noted, all statistics in the text and figures are taken from:
Global Health Observatory [website]. Geneva: World Health Organization
(http://www.who.int/gho/en/), and the Preventive Chemotherapy and
Transmission Control (PCT) databank. Geneva: World Health Organization
(http://www.who.int/neglected_diseases/preventive_chemotherapy/
databank/en/).
1
Eradication of guinea-worm disease (2015) and yaws (2020); global
elimination of leprosy (2020), lymphatic filariasis (2020), trachoma
(2020), onchocerciasis (2025) and HAT (2020, with zero incidence in
2030); regional elimination of schistosomiasis (2020), rabies (2020) and
visceral leishmaniasis (2020); regional interruption of intra-domiciliary
transmission of Chagas disease (2020).
2
Tracking universal health coverage: first global monitoring report. Geneva
and Washington (DC): World Health Organization and World Bank;
2015 (http://www.who.int/healthinfo/universal_health_coverage/
report/2015/en/, accessed 25 March 2016).
3
Horizontal lines reflect 95% uncertainty intervals around missing values in 2014.
a
Data for dengue are not available from the WHO African Region; data for echinococcosis are available from some countries of the WHO
European Region only; data for other NTDs including Chagas disease and zoonotic NTDs are not currently available.
b
58
WORLD HEALTH STATISTICS: 2016
a
Horizontal lines reflect 95% uncertainty intervals around missing values in 2014. A country is shown as not having available data when the uncertainty interval exceeds two orders of magnitude.
Water sanitation & hygiene for accelerating and sustaining progress on
neglected tropical diseases. A global strategy 2015–2020. Geneva: World
Health Organization; 2015 (http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/
publications/wash-and-ntd-strategy/en/, accessed 29 March 2015).
4
MONITORING HEALTH FOR THE SDGs
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