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Abstract
Peter Hotez and Larry Peiperl argue that the world’s poorest people may take on a
disproportionate burden of noncommunicable diseases, even as their home countries
gain in economic power.
The concept of the neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) was established in the aftermath of the Millennium Development Goals. Here, we summarize the emergence of several new post-2010 global health documents and policies, and how they may alter the way we frame the world's major NTDs since they were first highlighted. These documents include a new Global Burden of Disease 2010 Study that identifies visceral leishmaniasis and food-borne trematode infections as priority diseases beyond the seven NTDs originally targeted by preventive chemotherapy, a London Declaration for access to essential medicines, and a 2013 World Health Assembly resolution on NTDs. Additional information highlights an emerging dengue fever pandemic. New United Nations resolutions on women and the non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have not yet embraced NTDs, which may actually be the most common afflictions of girls and women and represent a stealth cause of NCDs. NTDs also have important direct and collateral effects on HIV/AIDS and malaria, and there is now a robust evidence base and rationale for incorporating NTDs into the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. “Blue marble health” is an added concept that recognizes a paradoxical NTD disease burden among the poor living in G20 (Group of Twenty) and other wealthy countries, requiring these nations to take greater ownership for both disease control and research and development. As we advance past the year 2015, it will be essential to incorporate global NTD elimination into newly proposed Sustainable Development Goals.
World Health Organization statistics show that deaths worldwide from chronic noncommunicable diseases (CNCDs) now exceed those from infectious diseases [1]. The major CNCDs causing the greatest share of deaths and disability worldwide include cardiovascular conditions (mainly heart disease and stroke), some cancers, chronic respiratory conditions, and type 2 diabetes [2]. Together they account for 60% of all deaths worldwide [2]. Approximately 80% of the CNCD deaths occur in low-income and middle-income countries [2]. Most of the factors contributing to such large numbers of deaths, a large proportion of which are premature, are similar to those in developed countries. They include increasing tobacco use, diminished physical activity and lack of exercise, and the consumption of unhealthy foods [2]. CNCDs are defined as diseases or conditions that affect individuals over an extensive period of time and for which there are no known causative agents that are transmitted from one affected individual to another [2]. More than any other type of infection, the neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) most closely resemble the CNCDs. The characteristic feature of the NTDs are their chronic and insidious clinical manifestations, and the resulting long-term disability [3],[4]. An impoverished person suffering from a NTD will typically have the condition for years, sometimes decades, and sometimes their entire life [3],[4]. Indeed, except for the fact that we know their causative agents, the NTDs for the most part meet CNCD-defining criteria. Shown in Table 1 are the major chronic disease syndromes that result from NTDs. Chagas disease is a leading cause of chronic cardiovascular disease in Latin America, often resulting in severe cardiomyopathy [5], while Loa loa and other parasitic infections have been identified as possible etiologies of endomyocardial fibrosis in sub-Saharan Africa [6]. Urinary schistosomiasis is a leading cause of bladder cancer in Africa and the Middle East (causing a unique squamous cell carcinoma) [7],[8], while opisthorchiasis and clonorchiasis, both causes of oriental liver fluke infection, cause bile duct carcinoma in Southeast Asia and China [9]. Worldwide, trichuriasis causes more inflammatory bowel disease than either Crohn disease or ulcerative colitis [10], and schistosomiasis is a leading cause of chronic renal disease and failure in Africa and the Middle East [7],[8],[11]. In Asia, paragonomiasis ranks with tuberculosis and lung cancer as a leading cause of hemoptysis [12], and toxocariasis is emerging as an important cause of asthma [13]. 10.1371/journal.pntd.0000312.t001 Table 1 CNCD-Like Syndromes Caused by the NTDs. Chronic Condition NTDs as Etiologies Approximate Number of Cases of Each Infection Major Geographic Distribution Cardiovascular disease Cardiomyopathy Chagas disease 8–9 million Latin America Endomyocardial fibrosis Loiasis (and other helminthiases)a 13 million Sub-Saharan Africa Cancer Bladder cancer; squamous cell carcinoma Urinary schistosomiasis (S. haematobium infection) 119 million Africa Bile duct carcinoma Opisthorchiasis and clonorchiasis 6–44 million Southeast Asia and China Gastrointestinal and liver disease Inflammatory bowel disease Trichuriasis 604 million Developing countries Megacolon and megaesophagus Chagas disease 8–9 million Latin America Intestinal and liver fibrosis Schistosomiasis (S. mansoni infection and S. japonicum infection) 68 million Africa, Brazil, and East Asia Liver cyst Amebiasis ND India, Latin America Liver cyst Echinococcosis ND Developing countries Chronic renal disease Hydronephrosis and renal failure Urinary schistosomiasis 119 million Africa Blood dyscrasias Anemia Hookworm infection 576 million Developing countries Anemia Schistosomiasis 207 million Developing countries Pancytopenia Leishmaniasis 12 million India, Africa, Brazil Chronic respiratory conditions Hemoptysis Paragonimiasis 21 million East Asia Asthma Ascariasis 807 million Developing countries Asthma Toxocariasis ND Worldwide a Still under investigation. ND, not determined. Anemia is one of the best documented examples of a chronic condition in which a single NTD, such as hookworm infection, accounts for a significant percentage of the attributable risk [14]–[17], or in which multiple NTD coinfections and polyparasitism make a significant contribution [18]–[23]. Another is cancer—urinary schistosomiasis was shown to account for 28% of the bladder cancer in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe [24], and 0.1% of the world's cancer burden [25], while liver flukes (e.g., Clonorchis sinensis and Opisthorchis spp.) account for an estimated 0.02% of all cancers [25]. Van der Werf et al. determined that Schistosoma haematobium was responsible for 10 million cases of hydronephrosis in sub-Saharan Africa, and S. mansoni was associated with 8.5 million cases of hepatomegaly in the region [11]. It has been further estimated that approximately 5.4 million people will develop chronic Chagas heart disease, while 900,000 will develop severe enlargement of the digestive tract (megacolon and megaesophagus) [26]. However, the full extent to which the NTDs listed in Table 1 contribute to the other CNCDs requires active investigation. Among the bottom billion living in the poorest areas of the developing world, the underlying causes of chronic cardiovascular, renal, hepatic, and gastrointestinal disease, as well as cancer, are frequently neglected and unstudied. Because they are so common in low-income and middle-income countries, it is of critical importance to determine how the NTDs contribute significantly to the CNCD burden in such regions. Such an evidence base is critical for informing new policies for tackling chronic disease in developing countries. The new Grand Challenges in CNCDs initiative [2] is an ambitious effort to raise public awareness of these conditions in the developing world, enhance economic, legal, and environmental policies, modify risk factors, mitigate the health impacts of poverty and urbanization, engage the community, and reorient health systems away from treatment towards prevention [2]. Wherever the NTDs geographically overlap with the CNCDs, there is a need to assess the contribution of the former, and to recognize that when it comes to NTDs, the distinction between noncommunicable and communicable diseases can be murky.
Devi Sridhar and colleagues discuss how three major trends in global governance, the rise of emerging economies, the increase in multi-bi financing and institutional proliferation, have ramifications for whether NCDs will be included in the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals agenda. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary
Publisher:
Public Library of Science
(San Francisco, CA USA
)
ISSN
(Print):
1549-1277
ISSN
(Electronic):
1549-1676
Publication date
(Electronic):
28
July
2015
Publication date Collection:
July
2015
Volume: 12
Issue: 7
Electronic Location Identifier: e1001859
Affiliations
[1
]Department of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology, National School
of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, United States of
America
[2
]Sabin Vaccine Institute and Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development,
Houston, Texas, United States of America
[3
]James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, Houston, Texas, United
States of America
[4
]Department of Biology, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, United States of America
[5
]Public Library of Science, San Francisco, California, United States of America
Author notes
LP is Chief Editor of
PLOS Medicine. LP's individual competing interests are at
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/s/competing-interests-of-the-plos-medicine-editors. PLOS is funded partly through manuscript publication charges, but the
PLOS Medicine Editors are paid a fixed salary (their salaries are not linked to the number of papers
published in the journal). PJH is Co-Editor-in-Chief of
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
Wrote the first draft of the manuscript: LP PJH. Contributed to the writing of the
manuscript: LP PJH. Agree with the manuscript’s results and conclusions: LP PJH. All
authors have read, and confirm that they meet, ICMJE criteria for authorship.
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Tables: 1,
Pages: 4
Funding
LP is paid a salary by the Public Library of Science and wrote this editorial during
salaried time.
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