%0 Journal Article
%T Control of neglected tropical diseases in Asia Pacific: implications for health information priorities
%A Robert Bergquist
%A Maxine Whittaker
%J Infectious Diseases of Poverty
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/2049-9957-1-3
%X Please see Additional file 1 for translations of the abstract into the six official working languages of the United Nations.The common denominator for being at risk for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) is poverty, a condition that makes people vulnerable to them due to environmental risks as well as social vulnerabilities varying from gender bias to substance abuse or harmful feeding habits. These vulnerabilities sustain the problem as they are widespread and the forces upholding them are as much shaped by the economy and society as by the environment. Over two billion people in the world are affected by the group of infections known as the NTDs [1]; tropical because of their spatial distribution and neglected because they do not receive sufficient interest and research funding. Not surprisingly, the NTDs are common in areas where the human development index (HDI) is low. They are in truth neglected people¡¯s neglected diseases since they, beyond their direct impact on health, feed the vicious cycle of poverty and disease (Figure 1) that leaves children unable to go to school and adults incabable of working or fully participating in community life [2].Two of the United Nation¡¯s eight millennium development goals (MDGs), agreed by member states as critical for the world to continue to develop on a global scale [3], are related to the area of public health. One concerns child mortality and maternal health and the other communicable diseases. Research on aspects of these two MDGs is progressing well, but the various infectious diseases affecting marginalized people in the less developed countries (LDCs) are still far from under control. Indeed, 12 years on, the NTDs still top the list of health crises in the developing world. The combined burden of soil-transmitted helminthiases (STHs), snail-borne trematode infections, and vector-borne infections in the endemic countries presents a formidable challenge for the national Ministries of Health due to insufficient data an
%K Neglected tropical diseases
%K NTD
%K Health information systems
%K Poverty
%K Disease surveillance
%K Control programmes
%K Asia Pacific
%U http://www.idpjournal.com/content/1/1/3