The World Health Organization praised the country for its “exceptional achievement” this week. The country has eliminated drip disease, lymphatic filariasis, sleeping sickness and trachoma in 11 years. 1.7 billion people in the world still suffer from tropical diseases, 40 percent of whom live in Africa. Neglected diseases often distort, isolate and trap individuals in a vicious cycle of extreme poverty.
Health workers in sub-Saharan Africa prepare for treatment for a young girl with sleeping sickness | Photo: Sebastian Polish | Source: Doctors Without Borders
Togo has been a huge success. “She is a role model for the rest of Africa and shows what can be achieved when health is a priority,” said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. The newspaper drew attention to the event Watchman.
Guinea worm, which causes a disease called dracunculiasis, stopped spreading in the country in 2011. Six years later, Togo became the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to suppress mosquito-borne lymphatic filariasis. In 2020, the eradication of African sleeping sickness followed. This year, the country eliminated trachoma, an infectious disease of the eye that is the most common cause of infectious blindness. This disease is caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis.
health first
According to Theoko Elvik Polly, Director of the United Global Partnership against Neglected Tropical Diseases, Togo’s success lies in its sheer determination. “I hope that all African leaders will be inspired by the amazing measures that Togo has taken to change the health of its citizens,” she said. “Health is a priority we have placed at the heart of our development policies,” President Faure Gnassingbe emphasized.
The World Health Organization has classified so-called neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) since 2017. The group includes 20 treatable and preventable infectious diseases.
Although humanity can eliminate six of them through the collective administration of safe medicines, they are often overlooked in budgets and not even a priority in global funding. However, the number of people requiring treatment for at least one disease on the continent is slowly declining: in 2015, 630 million patients required treatment, and by 2020 the number will drop to 598 million.
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Efforts to eradicate diseases peaked in 2012. The cause has brought together one hundred donor countries, philanthropists, pharmaceutical companies, research institutions and other organizations to support the London Declaration to Eliminate Ten NTD Group Diseases by 2020. Since then, at least one disease has eliminated 46 countries. . World leaders have set themselves the goal of eliminating all diseases by 2030. They announced this three months ago at a meeting in Rwanda.
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