The 20 diseases that make up the NTD set are predominantly found in tropical and subtropical countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The single commonality of these diseases is their impact on the world’s most impoverished communities. The World Health Organization
The World Health Organization’s Ending the neglect to attain the Sustainable Development Goals: a road map for neglected tropical diseases 2021−2030 sets ambitious targets for the eradication of these diseases. The CDC Foundation supports this effort by working with CDC and its partners to prevent, manage and eliminate NTDs. This includes diseases like trachoma, onchocerciasis, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis and Guinea worm disease.
Accurate Testing for NTDs
Accurate tests are essential for disease surveillance and diagnosis to treat World Neglected Tropical Diseases. However, many of the traditional diagnostic tests for the most prevalent NTDs are either outdated or inefficient. Few tests exist for less common diseases like mycetoma. Gaps in test availability, accessibility and accuracy limit public health response. In addition, developing new diagnostic tests is no simple task. Teams of experts at every step of the process must conduct research, testing and analysis to ensure new tests are accurate and scalable.
The CDC Foundation supports biomarker discovery efforts. This is the critical first step in this complex process. Antibody biomarkers are molecules that indicate the presence of an infection and are a reliable method of testing for NTDs. Using a novel method called serum epitope repertoire analysis (SERA), researchers can identify antibodies associated with a given infection. Once the antibodies are identified, the information is presented to a team tasked with creating specific tests, known as assays, to detect those antibodies.
World Neglected Tropical Diseases often have little in common with each other. They have varying modes of transmission, like unclean water or animal bites. For example, some are parasitic. Others, however, may be bacterial or fungal. NTDs often present with different symptoms and require completely different treatments. And some present with no symptoms at all. Therefore, they become difficult to identify. Experts must focus on each NTD separately and develop each assay independently to create accurate, disease-specific tests.
The global health community has renewed its commitment to lessening the burden of NTDs. This is especially important because these diseases affect vulnerable populations all over the world. Lastly, the CDC Foundation and partners are working toward easing global suffering and eliminating these destructive diseases.
