Forgotten Diseases

 written by 20526 Joo Min Seo

 

Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) are serious problems in places such as Africa, Asia and South America. It is a disease that occurs mainly among low-income people in developing countries.

There are diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS that are commonly known. However, in developing countries, people suffer from many other diseases besides these three. Approximately more than a billion people suffer from neglected diseases. But unfortunately, most people worldwide do not know about diseases like Buruli ulcer, Chagas disease, Dracunculiasis, Leishmaniasis and Onchocerciasis.

NTDs spread through pathogens living in unsanitary conditions like unfiltered and contaminated water that coexist with chronic poverty. Most developing countries have always been poor, so there have always been neglected diseases.

NTDs do not exist in developing countries with hygienic environments. So most people live without even knowing that neglected diseases exist on Earth.

This alienation caused by poverty forms a vicious cycle, causing poverty again. Patients who suffer from illness can’t get a job. Therefore, they are not economically productive, which makes them go back into poverty. At a national level, it is also difficult to get out of poverty if the population of neglected diseases is large.

Most NTDs are not incurable, but most people die since they cannot afford a cure. Treatments for these diseases are not very expensive but are very high in poverty-stricken developing countries with hardly any access to medical treatment. Despite the existence of effective treatments, the sad thing is now happening in developing countries where many infected people die.

There are many NTDs where no treatment has been developed because there are few studies related to them. Even if pharmaceutical companies can save hundreds of millions of lives, the drug will not be developed unless guaranteed high profit. In this case, too, money is the cause of death.

 

The graph above shows that only 3.1 percent of all disease studies involve Neglected Tropical Diseases. Instead, most disease studies concentrate on well-known diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS. Less than 1 percent of the population goes into relatively lesser-known NTDs.

Each one of us needs to pay attention in order to fundamentally resolve these diseases. In addition to the commonly known diseases, it is necessary to know that there are less known diseases from developing countries and to recognize the existence of people suffering from these diseases. When most people can know and sympathize with the need for supporting the NTDs, it is only then that these diseases can no longer be marginalized.