Abstract
Improvements of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure and appropriate health-seeking behavior are necessary for achieving sustained control, elimination, or eradication of many neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Indeed, the global strategies to fight NTDs include provision of WASH, but few programs have specific WASH targets and approaches. Collaboration between disease control programs and stakeholders in WASH is a critical next step. A group of stakeholders from the NTD control, child health, and WASH sectors convened in late 2012 to discuss opportunities for, and barriers to, collaboration. The group agreed on a common vision, namely “Disease-free communities that have adequate and equitable access to water and sanitation, and that practice good hygiene.” Four key areas of collaboration were identified, including (i) advocacy, policy, and communication; (ii) capacity building and training; (iii) mapping, data collection, and monitoring; and (iv) research. We discuss strategic opportunities and ways forward for enhanced collaboration between the WASH and the NTD sectors.
Highlights
Treatment alone will not break the cycle of transmission; improvements of WASH infrastructure and appropriate healthseeking behavior are essential to achieving sustained control, elimination, or eradication of many neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) [1,2,3]
In practice, the repeated largescale administration of antibiotics or anthelmintic drugs to at-risk populations [4,5] is the primary focus of many NTD control programs
The purpose of improved mapping and monitoring in the NTD and WASH communities is to identify areas that are at greatest need of interventions, to ascertain the required frequency of treatment in light of WASH coverage and other risk factors, to track progress for achieving World Health Organization (WHO) and Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets [27], and share costs of data collection at the ground level [28,29,30]
Summary
The purpose of improved mapping and monitoring in the NTD and WASH communities is to identify areas that are at greatest need of interventions, to ascertain the required frequency of treatment in light of WASH coverage and other risk factors, to track progress for achieving WHO and Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets [27], and share costs of data collection at the ground level [28,29,30].
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