World NTD Day: How LCNTDR is accelerating progress towards the elimination of NTDs
The London Centre for Neglected Tropical Disease Research (LCNTDR) is a partnership of organisations committed to tackling neglected tropical diseases. Partners from each organisation leverage their institutional missions and expertise towards a unifying goal where the burden of NTDs is reduced and eliminated. From basic biology to genomics, from ecology to mathematical modelling, from wildlife through to livestock, and from rural to urban communities across the globe, our members unite towards controlling and eliminating NTDs.
NTDs are preventable diseases. As we begin a new decade and recognise the world’s need to come to overcome global challenges concerning climate change, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction and rapid urbanisation, NTDs remain an overwhelming barrier to human wellbeing and the route out of poverty. If we are to achieve the United Nations Sustainability Goals we must refocus our efforts on NTDs where a thriving population can focus on delivering a thriving planet.
2020 was set as a goal line for many targets developed at the 2012 London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases. Substantial gains have been made in controlling and eliminating many severely debilitating diseases such as lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis, and trachoma across many countries. But much has yet to be achieved. World leaders need to reflect on the success of their investments of efforts and resources whilst setting new ambitious targets that we can track annually until these diseases can be relegated to human history, rather than tolerating them as components of ongoing human misery.
- Dr Timothy Littlewood, Director of Science, Natural History Museum