Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a group of debilitating diseases and disease groups that inflict harm on over a billion of the world’s most vulnerable people. The means to control and eliminate many of these diseases exists, but resources are lacking.
Pilgrim Africa supports national programs with tools and data gathering to help identify and understand the populations at highest risk of NTDs. We also partner with Uganda’s Ministry of Health in the drive to eliminate trachoma and onchocerciasis parasitic causes of blindness in over two million people worldwide.
Eliminating NTDs requires reaching, understanding, and engaging the populations at highest risk of these diseases. A Pilgrim Africa-led consortium of partners, together with technical advice from NTD program managers across the continent, created a tool to help identify and assess populations at high risk of NTDs, known as “high risk populations,” or HRPs.
Consortium Partners
Uganda Ministry of Health Vector Borne and Neglected Tropical Diseases, Pilgrim Africa, University of California San Francisco-Malaria Elimination Initiative, WI/HER.
With support from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Trachoma and onchocerciasis (river blindness) are parasitic NTDs that can cause blindness. Trachoma alone is responsible for the blindness of 1.9 million people worldwide.
Uganda is on the verge of eliminating both of these diseases forever.
Onchocerciasis remains in only two areas of the country’s north, the largest of which is 11 districts in the Madi Mid-North region.
Trachoma remains in only 5 districts.
Further progress towards elimination hinges on the ability to identify, understand, reach, and engage the highest-risk populations in remaining foci, including nomadic pastoralists, refugees, and inner city residents.
Using the NTD HRP assessment tool, we identified key risk factors for parasitic blindness among refugees, border dwellers, migrants, children with related illnesses and inner city residents, highlighting gaps in intervention strategies. In close consultation with
stakeholders, national NTD program staff outlined key actions to fill those gaps.
Early detection is critical to managing and eliminating Trachoma: we found that while community health workers were well trained to recognize, treat, and report the disease, health workers at facilities were not, nor were the health teams serving refugee populations. Solution? more training for health workers at facilities, and more training for health workers who work with refugees.
Safe water and sanitation are key prevention measures: we found that those most affected had very limited access to safe water and sanitation services. We are working with the ministry of health to develop solutions.
Table 1 below outlines the 21 diseases that the World Health Organization has targeted for progress towards elimination by 2030, divided into four control categories: control, elimination as a public health problem, elimination, and eradication.
