Abstract
Successes achieved in the fight to eliminate guinea worm infections and advances in diagnostics and donation of safe and reliable medicines have led to optimism that some of the parasitic diseases grouped as the neglected tropical diseases (NTD) could be eliminated. These NTDs particularly those amenable to preventive chemotherapy (PC-NTDs) have been targeted for either elimination as a public health problem or elimination of transmission by the Year 2020.These are lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis, soil transmitted helminthiasis and trachoma. Various challenges are being posited as hurdles that could derail the attainment of the targets set. These are mostly related to the distribution of medicines (geographical and therapeutic coverages), the presence of systematic non-compliant individuals in the endemic populations and appropriate diagnosis to determine infection levels after years of drug administration.
Highlights
Successes achieved in the fight to eliminate guinea worm infections and advances in diagnostics and donation of safe and reliable medicines have led to optimism that some of the parasitic diseases grouped as the neglected tropical diseases (NTD) could be eliminated
The Guinea worm eradication goal, which paved the way that some parasitic infections could be eliminated or eradicated recently hit a snag when it was observed that dogs in Chad could serve as reservoirs of infection and potential source of new human infections
The observation of dogs as reservoir of infection for guinea worm, begs the question whether this is the only parasitic infection targeted for elimination that is erroneously considered as only infecting humans
Summary
Challenges to global control and/or elimination of NTDs: threats of animal reservoirs of human infections Successes achieved in the fight to eliminate guinea worm infections and advances in diagnostics and donation of safe and reliable medicines have led to optimism that some of the parasitic diseases grouped as the neglected tropical diseases (NTD) could be eliminated. These NTDs those amenable to preventive chemotherapy (PC-NTDs) have been targeted for either elimination as a public health problem or elimination of transmission by the Year 2020.
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