'Greater commitment' needed to fight NTDs

In a guest post on USAID's "IMPACT Blog," Rachel Cohen, regional executive director of DNDi North America, writes, "The United States government and its country partners should be commended for the tremendous achievements in the fight against neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) as part of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) NTD Program" and the National Institutes of Health. "However, not all NTD research is created equal," she writes, adding, "Beyond basic research, much more research and development (R&D), including late-stage product development, for new drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics is urgently needed for those NTDs where adequate tools do not exist." Noting that African sleeping sickness, Chagas disease, and kala azar (visceral leishmaniasis) "are not yet included in the USAID NTD Program," Cohen says "greater commitment to developing new NTD treatments and other tools is sorely needed if disease control or elimination is to be achieved" (9/18).