30 Aug 2023

Eliminating Non Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in the African region remains a priority that needs collaboration of different stakeholders, WHO regional director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti has said.

In her presentation about unlocking financing for neglected tropical diseases in Africa, Dr Moeti informed the RC73 delegates that WHO Africa region office had developed a roadmap and its priorities included  guiding the affected countries on sustainable measures in efforts to eliminate the NTDs.

She underscored the need for collaboration measures from different stakeholders for continuous positive outcomes.

The WHO roadmap also encourages strategies on programmes and comprehensive approaches that include early diagnosis of the condition, possible ways to manage and possibly leading to elimination of it all, she said.

She said collaboration of different stakeholders was instrumental, and an approachable measure to devise more sustainable measure to continuously tackle the NTDs related challenges.

Dr Moeti said although some of the affected countries had made progress to address and eliminate the NTDs challenges, lack of sustainable financing remained a hindrance to navigate some of the platforms that could also protect the progress made.

She said lack of sustainable financing was a significant barrier in some of the affected countries, it limited the potential to control, eliminate and eradicate the NTDs.

“Most of the affected countries rely mostly on donors to tackle the NTDs. This is a challenge that always draw efforts made backwards since some donations come once,” she said.

She said through collaborations, more measures on mobilising financing could be scouted and implemented to curb the challenge of inadequate funds in affected countries.

For his part, the director for Pandemic Action Network Africa Region, Mr Aggrey Aluso said in an effort to accelerate elimination of NTDs in Africa, coordinating activities and technical guidance were needed and affected countries should also consider some of the set multilateral funding mechanisms.

Citing the Pandemic Fund as one of them, he explained that its objective was to provide a stream of additional long term funding for prevention and response measures in eligible countries through technical support at the national level.

NTDs can cause immeasurable suffering, they debilitate, disfigure and can be fatal, and can also negatively affect the economy of affected countries if not contained, he said.

Most of the affected people are those in communities with inadequate access to clean water, poor hygienic and sanitation standards, which lead to the creation of an ideal condition for bacterial infections. ENDS