How can we prevent tropical disease?

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Guinea-wormdisease, schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminthiasis and trachoma can all be avoided with clean water, hygienic food handling and basic hygiene. TDs distributed by worms, flies, mosquitoes or other hosts are called vector-borne TDs and they can be prevented by controlling the vectors.

Even without immunizations, tropical diseases (TDs) are highly avoidable. Guinea-worm disease, schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminthiasis and trachoma can all be avoided with clean water, hygienic food handling and basic hygiene. Vector-borne TDs, such as those transferred by worms, flies, mosquitoes or other hosts can be avoided by controlling the vectors. Insecticides can be sprayed in large quantities in locations where vectors reproduce or congregate, killing them before they become parasite carriers. Scientists are also looking into genetically modifying the vectors to prevent them from carrying the parasite the genetically modified vectors would then be released into the population, where they would reproduce and pass on their genetic anomalies to future generations.

Emerging and re-emerging zoonotic diseases are a major public health problem around the world. They encompass a wide range of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), many of which are zoonotic. Another developing zoonotic illness, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has now raised the stakes dramatically. The influence of some of the same human-related activities that cause other emerging and re-emerging diseases, such as COVID-19 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), bird flu and swine flu is felt by most TDs. COVID-19 has the potential to aggravate NTDs by diverting much-needed financial and human resources. There is a lot of anxiety that recent progress in control and elimination efforts will be undone. In order to galvanise efforts and come up with a complete, well-defined programme that will set the foundation for an effective multi-sectorial approach, future prospective strategies will need to reconsider the determinants of health in TDs. We offer potential synergies between COVID-19 pandemic control efforts, other health and non-health sector initiatives and NTD control and elimination programmers in this Commentary.


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