10 facts about the most dangerous diseases you've never heard of

Saturday marks World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day and with Covid-19 dominating global attention , charities are looking to raise awareness about the impact of other illnesses

Health experts warn that the focus on dealing with Covid-19 has diverted resources from tackling a host of lesser-known diseases that affect 1.7 billion people. Reuters

As the world battles the Covid-19 pandemic, resources are being sucked away from the fight against a host of debilitating diseases that affect 1.7 billion of the poorest people on the planet, medical experts have warned.

On Saturday, charities marked World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day, seeking to draw attention to a diverse group of communicable diseases that still cause immense suffering around the world, even though they can be prevented or cured.

They include: leprosy, Chagas disease, intestinal worms, dengue and chikungunya, Guinea worm disease, scabies, trachoma and schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis – which can develop into elephantiasis, yaws, river blindness and sleeping sickness.

Yet despite calls to eradicate such diseases by the likes of former US president Jimmy Carter and the late British physicist Stephen Hawking, they are still widespread.

Coronavirus around the world - in pictures 

A woman receives the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in Dubai. EPA

A health worker joins a protest calling for better government response amid the coronavirus outbreak, as the one-year anniversary of the first COVID-19 case in the Philippines approaches, outside a government hospital in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines. Reuters

Staff members in protective suits stand at Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine where members of the World Health Organisation (WHO) team tasked with investigating the origins of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are visiting, in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. Reuters

Workers prepare a coffin for burial at the special section of the Padurenan cemetery opened to accommodate the surge in deaths during the coronavirus outbreak in Bekasi, Indonesia. AP Photo

A man wearing a face mask walks through the Sensoji temple in the snow in Tokyo. AP Photo

A military officer hands a 'vaccine transportation' patch to a colleague during a joint rehearsal by police and the army for the transportation of COVID-19 vaccines at the National Medical Center in Seoul, South Korea. South Korea will begin its vaccination drive in February. EPA

A healthcare worker fills a syringe with a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at the Newcastle Racecourse vaccination centre, in Newcastle upon Tyne, Britain. Reuters

Photos of health workers who died with COVID-19 are displayed on the boardwalk of the Miraflores district in Lima, Peru. EPA

Rows of oxygen concentrators for COVID-19 patients sit in the main plaza of the Iztapalapa borough of Mexico City. AP Photo

Chinese men wearing masks stand near stone lions across from the Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital where a team from the World Health Organization visited in Wuhan in central China's Hubei. AP Photo

Registered Nurse Monica Escobar, 49, checks on a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patient, at LAC+USC Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, U.S. Reuters

Children wear face masks as they queue keeping distance as a preventive measure against the spread of the coronavirus, COVID-19, at the Paul Valery French School in Yumbo, Valle del Cauca department, Colombia. Some children started attending classes in Colombia complying with a biosecurity protocol, wearing face masks and maintaining social distance some days a week. AFP

Here are 10 key facts about Neglected Tropical Diseases, known as NTDs:

1. Affecting over 1.7 billion globally, NTDs are responsible for thousands of preventable deaths each year. The number of people affected has fallen from two billion in 2010.

These diseases blind, disable and disfigure and perpetuate a cycle of poverty, keeping millions of children out of school and adults from work.

2. The number of NTDs was increased to 20 from 17 in 2016, with three new diseases added: mycetoma, chromoblastomycosis and other deep mycoses, scabies and other ectoparasites and snakebite envenoming.

3. NTDs are primarily found in poor populations living in tropical and subtropical climates across Africa, Asia and South America.

4. The diseases afflict those without access to clean water, sanitation and the basic health services required to protect themselves against infection by bacteria, viruses and other pathogens. These include communities in remote, rural areas, urban slums or conflict zones.

5. Scientists have voiced concerns that global warming could increase the number of people exposed to mosquito-carrying viruses – including dengue fever and Zika virus – by one billion by 2080, if the climate continues to warm at current rates.

6. High-income groups are rarely affected. More than 70 per cent of countries and territories that report the presence of NTDs are low-income or lower middle-income economies, according to the World Health Organisation.

7. Many NTDs are chronic, slowly developing conditions that become progressively worse if undetected and untreated – and the damage they cause can be irreversible.

For example, trachoma – a bacterial eye infection – damages the eyelids, causing the eyelashes to turn inwards and rub painfully against the eyeball. If not corrected with surgery, it can lead to irreversible vision loss and blindness.

8. NTDs can cause severe pain and life-long disabilities, with long-term consequences for the patient and their family.

People with NTDs are often stigmatised and excluded from society, such as people with leprosy. In some countries, leper colonies continue to exist. People in such communities are ostracised from society, often with adverse impact on their mental health.

9. In 2012, the WHO and member states agreed on the first global road map aimed at eliminating or eradicating 17 NTDs.

So far, 42 countries have eliminated at least one NTD.

The WHO released its second 10-year plan on January 28 with the aim of eliminating at least one of the 20 recognized NTDs in at least 90 countries by 2030.

It also aims to make drugs safe and available and target the mosquitoes, flies and ticks that spread some NTDs. This is with a view to cutting the number of people requiring medical treatment for the diseases by 90 per cent over the next 10 years.

10. Health experts say efforts to alleviate NTDs are being hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic, which is pushing already strained healthcare systems to breaking point.

The WHO said in September the outbreak had hit NTD programmes, with countries having to suspend mass treatment interventions and active-case finding and delay diagnosis and treatment.

Critical personnel have been reassigned to deal with Covid-19 and the manufacture, shipment and delivery of medicines has been disrupted, it said, warning of "an increased burden of NTDs".