NEW YORK/GENEVA, JANUARY 27, 2021—Patients with neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) need better access to testing and treatment that is safe and effective, said the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in a new report today. An improved global response to NTDs, which affect more than 1.7 billion people worldwide each year, is critical in order to prevent further deaths and disability, said MSF.
“NTDs almost exclusively affect people living in extreme poverty,” said Dr. Christos Christou, MSF’s International President. “As a result, there are no vaccines, diagnostic tools are limited, and treatments are far from optimal and often unavailable or unaffordable for people suffering from these debilitating and deadly diseases.”