The sixteenth meeting of the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Neglected Tropical Diseases (STAG-NTD) was held as a hybrid meeting, 27–2
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8 September 2022.
Dr Ren Minghui, Assistant Director-General, Universal Health Coverage/Communicable and Noncommunicable Diseases, welcomed participants to the meeting. He said the World Health Organization’s Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases (WHO/NTD) was in a state of transition. Following the death of the late esteemed Director Dr Mwelecele Ntuli Malecela earlier in the year, Dr Gautam Biswas had taken over as Acting Director but would soon retire; the appointment of a new Director was under way. Owing to rotation of STAG-NTD members, this would be the last meeting for some and the first meeting for several new participants. The work however would continue with the same commitment. Discussions over the next two days would focus on critical issues regarding recovery of NTD services following the disruptions caused by coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which had impacted many health services worldwide. He looked forward to receiving the advice and guidance of STAG-N
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WHO and UNITAID
in collaboration with IMPAACT (International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials) network, PENTA (Paediatric European Network for Treatment of AIDS) foundation and experts from the Paediatric Antiretroviral Working Gr
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oup
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Accessed on 04.04.2023
The Drugs for Neglected Diseases
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initiative (DNDi) is an international
non-profit organization that discovers, develops, and delivers safe,
effective, and affordable treatments for the most neglected patients
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The World Health Organization (WHO) and the global community of countries, partners, donors, technical experts, scientists and field implementation teams continue to work towards the ultimate goal of a world free of the burden of neglected tropical
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diseases (NTDs).
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Meeting Report
27–30 June 2017 Manila, Philippines
2nd edition. These guidelines include several notable changes from the first edition. For cutaneous leishmaniasis, ketoconazole has been removed from the list of treatment options; the number of Leishmania species
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for which there is strong evidence for the efficacy of miltefosine has increased from two to four; and the recommendation for intralesional antimonials is now strong. For mucosal leishmaniasis there is now a strong recommendation for use of pentavalent antimonials with or without oral pentoxifylline. For visceral leishmaniasis, the strong recommendations for use of pentavalent antimonials and amphotericin B deoxycholate are now conditional.
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PLoS Negl Trop Dis 15(8): e0009697. Chagas disease (CD), caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, affects ~6–7 million people worldwide. Significant limitations still exist in our understanding of CD. Harnessing individual participant data (IPD) from studies could support more in-depth analyses t
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o address the many outstanding research questions. This systematic review aims to describe the characteristics and treatment practices of clinical studies in CD and assess the breadth and availability of research data for the potential establishment of a data-sharing platform.
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Since 2000, concerted efforts by national programmes, supported by public–private partnerships, nongovernmental organizations, donors and academia under the auspices and coordination of the World Health Organization (WHO), have produced important achievements in the control of human African trypan
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osomiasis (HAT). As a consequence, the disease was targeted for elimination as a public health problem by 2020. The Sixty-sixth World Health Assembly endorsed this goal in resolution WHA66.12 on neglected tropical diseases, adopted in 2013.
National sleeping sickness control programmes (NSSCPs) are core to progressing control of the disease and in adapting to the different epidemiological situations. The involvement of different partners, as well as the support and trust of long-term donors, has been crucial for the achievements.
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Lessons from the STEP-TB Project.
Accessed November 2017.
This document focuses on making recommendations for the diagnosis and treatment of Chagas disease, an infection caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, the protozoan agent of a systemic parasitic disease. Methodology: These clinical practice guidelines were pr
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epared following the WHO handbook for guideline development (5). A multidisciplinary development group was formed, comprised of thematic experts, epidemiologists, methodologists, and users. Since there were no existing guidelines that could be adapted, the guidelines were developed from scratch.
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Not long ago, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Chagas disease, several campaigns denounced the scant progress has been made in diffrent spheres- medical, scientific and politcal- but major challanges still remain. This is an appropriate time to celebrate what has been ach
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ieved and to take the next step.
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Direct acting antivirals (DAAs) have revolutionized treatment for hepatitis C. Combi-
nations of DAAs can cure infection with HCV in 12 weeks, are highly effective and
have limited side-effects. Affordability of DAAs has impr
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oved significantly, but access remains lim-
ited. Initially, due to their high prices, affordability of DAAs was limited in high-, middle- and low-
income countries alike. Now there is a divide between those countries where, because of intellectual
property barriers, prices have remained (very) high and other countries where generics are, or can be,
available at much lower prices. The result is a dual market
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Leishmaniasis is a climate-sensitive disease. Changes in temperature, rainfall, and humidity can have strong impacts on
the sandfly vector, altering their distribution and influencing their survival and population sizes. Increased temperatures shorten vector development time, reduce Leishmania para
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site incubation time, and increase vector biting rates, allowing transmission
in areas not previously endemic for the disease. Poor and
marginalized communities will be hit disproportionately harder by
the effects of climate change, and droughts, famines, and floods
can also lead to displacement and migration of immunologically
naive people to areas where leishmaniasis is endemic, posing a
threat of leishmaniasis outbreaks.
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The objectives of the meeting were:
1. To step up the commitment of national authorities and technical and financial partners toWHO’s elimination objective for g-HAT.
2. To share achievements, challenges and views on the elimination goal among c
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ountries and implementing partners.
3. To assess the status of critical technical aspects to be solved in research and development of drugs and diagnostic tools, epidemiology, vector control and animal reservoirs.
4. To define the mechanisms for strengthening and organizing collaboration and coordination among stakeholders.
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To support its R&D activities on Chagas disease, DNDi launched the Chagas Clinical Research Platform (CCRP). The platform brings together partners, experts, and stakeholders to provide support for e
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valuation and development of new treatments for Chagas disease. The patient-centred platform aims to facilitate clinical research, provide a forum for technical discussions, develop a critical mass of expertise, and strengthen institutional research capacities. In addition, it identifies and reviews priority needs, works towards standardization of methodology to assess drug efficacy and reviews alternatives for using current approved drugs (new schemes, doses, combination) and special scenarios (resistance).
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J Glob Health Sci. 2020 Jun;2(1):e3. A group of enzootic and zoonotic protozoan infections, the leishmaniases constitute among the most severely neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and are found in a
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ll continents except Oceania. Representing the most common infectious diseases, NTDs comprise an open-ended list of some 20 parasitic, bacterial, viral, protozoan and helminthic infections. Called “diseases of the poor,” because of their characteristic prevalence in poor populations regardless of a country's income status, they infect over one billion people in over 140 countries, with about 90% of the global burden in Africa. While NTDs do not contribute significantly to global deaths, they are debilitating and remain the most common infections among the poor worldwide, preventing them from escaping poverty by impacting livelihoods such as agriculture and livestock, and affecting cognitive, developmental and education outcomes.
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