neglected tropical disease

Neglected tropical diseases are, in WHO's own description, a diverse group of conditions caused by a variety of pathogens and associated with devastating health, social and economic consequences. WHO currently classifies twenty-one diseases or disease groups this way, among them leprosy, trachoma, dengue, rabies, scabies, snakebite envenoming and several parasitic worm infections.

What links them is not biology. The group spans bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi and venom, which have almost nothing in common as agents of disease. What links them is who they affect and how much attention they have had. They concentrate in low-income communities, largely in tropical and subtropical regions, among people with limited access to clean water, sanitation and health care. The word neglected describes the response rather than the disease: relative to the harm they cause, these conditions have drawn little research money and little political focus.

That is also why progress against them is worth reporting. Many are preventable or treatable with tools that already exist and cost little, so the binding constraint has usually been delivery and attention rather than science. WHO's road map for neglected tropical diseases sets targets to 2030 for controlling, eliminating or eradicating them.