Carter hits record 500m doses for neglected tropical diseases

Jude Musa, 13, made record, taking the 500 millionth treatment for a neglected tropical disease (NTD) 20 years after the Carter Centre started its intervention in Nigeria. Musa, who testified to have been having blood-stained urine, took three drugs in separate doses to treat river blindness, schistosomiasis, and intestinal worms to mark the 500 millionth […]

Jude Musa, 13, made record, taking the 500 millionth treatment for a neglected tropical disease (NTD) 20 years after the Carter Centre started its intervention in Nigeria.

Musa, who testified to have been having blood-stained urine, took three drugs in separate doses to treat river blindness, schistosomiasis, and intestinal worms to mark the 500 millionth dose administered.

Nigeria is among 14 African and Latin American countries where Carter assists in treatment and prevention of NTDs like river blindness, elephantiasis, and worm infestation, but is "most affected by these troubling diseases," said Mary Ann Peter, chief executive officer of the Carter Centre.

Some 42% of the drugs, mostly received in donations from pharmaceutical companies, was distributed across 20,000 villages in eight states of Nigeria where Carter intervenes.

The proportion of NTD drugs coming into Nigeria has risen to 60% of all Carter distribution this year.

"The success we have here is due to the fact that Nigerians are willing to work hard to improve their health," said Peter.

“We have seen, time and again, that people at the grass-roots level can improve their own lives dramatically when they have access to the appropriate tools and knowledge.

“Among the most important of these tools are safe and effective donated medicines, together with health education and community ownership of the distribution process.”

Forgotten

“The whole of Nigeria’s productivity is affected when some suffer,” said Binda Bello, permanent secretary at the federal health ministry.

“The people of Nigeria deserve the best health possible and, together with the villages and our other faithful partners, we are achieving it.”

NTDs are labelled as neglected because they don’t receive deserved public health attention.

But up to 1.2 billion people worldwide suffer NTDs, said Michael Harvey, mission director for United States Agency for International Development.

"The people most affected fall on this side of this latitude, and the people most at risk are the poor," said Harvey.

National funding for NTDs lags behind noncommunicable diseases, and donations from drug makers to assist treatment are common.

US taxpayer fund in Carter’s NTD programme topped $100 million this year while drug makers committed more than $11 billion in medicines to be used in treatment, according to Harvey.

Half of the 500 million doses so far have been used to combat the effects of river blindness.

It is the second most common cause of blindness after trachoma.

The disease is common in areas where fast-flowing water bodies provide breeding ground for blackflies, which carry the blindness-causing worms to people living nearby.

Nasarawa has been described as a highly infective region for the disease, and Gidan Gimba has a breeding and trapping site for blackflies.

Nasarawa state government has pledged commitment to continuing battle against neglected tropical diseases through interventions, surveillance, vector control and safe water and hygiene practices.