London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Efforts to eliminate infectious tropical diseases have received a boost after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, governments, NGOs and the private sector united in pledging millions of pounds for previously neglected but serious diseases including elephantiasis, river blindness, bilharzia and Guinea Worm. The funding drive was launched at a conference at the Royal College of Physicians in London on 30 January, and follows the UK government pledge of £245 million in aid to tackle these diseases by 2015.

Professor Simon Croft, Head of the Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: “This is excellent news and offers fresh hope that the suffering caused by these diseases in the poorest parts of the world could be reduced or even removed completely. A great deal of attention has rightly been paid to high profile infections such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and TB but there are a lot of other diseases around the world which affect many people that do not attract the same profile.

“This new funding offers hope that diseases such as lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis), onchocerciasis (river blindness), schistosomiasis (bilharzia) and dracunculiasis (Guinea Worm) may be eradicated. Effective drugs and other treatments are available to combat these diseases, but the challenge is to get them to the people who need them.

"It is also vital that we maintain the momentum in tackling other neglected diseases, including sleeping sickness, dengue fever and leishmaniasis, where we still need research and development into new effective therapies.”

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