NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

In the battle for the billions of dollars spent fighting global diseases, doctors who tackle neglected tropical diseases have labeled their struggle a “best buy.”

In a report issued in June, a consortium called Uniting to Combat NTDs argued that every $1 invested in fighting tropical diseases would generate $50 to almost $200 in productivity gains by 2030.

The consortium’s targets include sleeping sickness, Guinea worm, Chagas, river blindness, trachoma, elephantiasis, leprosy, leishmaniasis, bilharziaand intestinal worms picked up in food or from the soil.

Not all of these diseases kill, but all can make victims so sick, weak or crippled that they are unable to work or attend school. So many patients lose so many work and school days, the report’s authors argued, that the total economic burden may be as great as that caused by better-known killers like AIDS and malaria.