The progress so far

On 30th January 2012 countries, pharmaceutical companies, donors, non-government organisations and research institutions came together to sign the London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs). By signing the declaration they committed to doing their part to control, eliminate or eradicate ten NTDs by 2020. This coalition of partners – known as Uniting to Combat NTDs – was formed around the declaration.

Fast forward to 2020 and the results are staggering: 32 countries have eliminated at least one disease, over 400 million people no longer require treatment and a billion people are being reached with treatments for NTDs every year. (Read more here about the successes of the London Declaration here.)

A new road map for NTDs

Despite this progress, NTDs continue to affect over 1.7 billion people and cause immeasurable suffering around the world. It’s in this context that the World Health Organization (WHO) has drafted a new road map for NTDs, to run from 2021-2030.

The new draft road map will build upon WHO’s 2012 – 2020 road map which, among other NTDs, included the ten that the signatories of the London Declaration believed had the essential ingredients for immediate, targeted assistance. The result has been eight and a half years of sustained progress against those ten NTDs.

The new WHO 2021-2030 NTD draft road map will focus on 20 diseases, including mycetoma, scabies and snakebite, which have been added to the original road map, which contained 17 diseases. These diseases have been added because they are amenable to immediate large-scale control or elimination.

The draft road map has bold targets for the next decade, including:

• A 90% reduction in the number of people requiring interventions for NTDs
• a 75% reduction in disability-adjusted life years relating to NTDs
• 100 countries eliminating at least one NTD and two NTDs being permanently eradicated.
• For detailed information about all of the NTDs covered by the new WHO NTD road map, see our NTDs overview page.

Ending the epidemic of NTDs

The Uniting to Combat NTDs partnership vision is to end the epidemic of NTDs by 2030, in line with the Sustainable Development Goal 3.3 target. Our focus is on creating the political will and enabling environment for countries to achieve the targets described in the new WHO draft road map.

That means we are expanding our focus from the ten diseases targeted in the 2012 London Declaration to all 20 diseases included in the new WHO draft road map.

Working with WHO and our partners, we will influence global policy to include and prioritise NTDs in both global and domestic health agendas, while advocating for increased donor and endemic country resource commitments for NTDs. At the same time we will facilitate collaboration and multi-sectoral action to support NTD programmes around the world.
The next ten years will be crucial to the future of the global response to NTDs and integrated, cross-sectoral approaches will be key.

Join us and unite to combat NTDs

Our partnership is open to anyone who wants to beat NTDs. We are working toward a global, high-level summit in 2021 for countries and partners to make political and financial commitments to end NTDs. We will continue to provide a forum for our partners to share news, updates and to advocate to end NTDs.

Join our partnership by signing up here.

You can read the World Health Organization’s 2021-2030 draft road map on NTDs here.

For more information contact info@unitingtocombatntds.org