GATES FOUNDATION COMMITS $46.7 MILLION TO TROPICAL DISEASES

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced it has issued five grants totaling $46.7 million. The grants will support efforts to coordinate and integrate programs to fight key neglected diseases in developing countries in Africa.

More than 500 million people in Africa are affected by neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), according to the organization. The overall goal of the new grants is to develop evidence that controlling NTDs in an integrated way has a greater impact on these diseases than the disease-specific strategies currently in use. The five grants aim to demonstrate that an integrated approach improves the performance and efficiency of programs, enhances their coverage, promotes sustainability and reduces the burden of NTDs in Africa.

Purchasing and delivering drugs to control five of the most devastating NTDs could cost as little as $0.50 per person per year if existing drug-delivery programs are brought together. The diseases are trachoma (blinding eye infection), soil-transmitted helminths (hookworm, ascaris, trichuris), onchocerciasis (river blindness), schistosomiasis (snail fever) and lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis). These diseases can be treated safely and effectively with single-dose drugs given once or twice a year to at-risk populations, according to the organization.

The organizations receiving the new funds are: the Task Force for Child Survival and Development ($11.7 million); the International Trachoma Initiative ($10 million); The Carter Center ($10 million); the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative ($10 million); and the World Health Organization ($5 million).