Activities of the DNTDs

Berlin, 12 May 2022 - The official document with political positions and priorities of international civil society was handed over to Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Peter Wiesner/Aktionsbündnis gegen AIDS, representing the Working Group Global Health, presented recommendations on which various members of the DNTDs and the Coordination Office had worked. Civil society organisations from over 40 countries participated in the process in five working groups to formulate their recommendations to this year's German G7 Presidency. In the document on Global Health, a demand to combat neglected tropical diseases and communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is outlined: Increase investment in poverty-related and neglected tropical diseases, non-communicable diseases and diseases of ageing!

WHO Director, Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases

Berlin, 11.02.2022 - The German Network against Neglected Tropical Diseases mourns the death of Dr. Mwelecele Ntuli Malecela. She worked tirelessly worldwide to combat neglected tropical diseases and was a main driver in launching the WHO-NTD Roadmap 2030. She studied zoology at the University of Dar es Salaam/Tanzania and joined the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in 1987, where she worked on lymphatic filariasis research at the Amani Centre. From 1990 to 1995, she studied and obtained her PhD at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. She held numerous leadership positions as Director of Research Coordination and Promotion at NIMR (1998), Director of the Lymphatic Filariasis Programme (2000), then Director General of NIMR - the first woman to hold this position. In 2018, Director-General of WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appointed her as Director of the Department of Neglected Tropical Diseases Control at the organisation's headquarters in Geneva.

In Germany, she participated in numerous events of the DNTDs at the World Health Summit or in Parliamentary Evenings with the Parliamentary Advisory Council. With her, we lose a dedicated, warm-hearted comrade-in-arms in the fight against neglected tropical diseases.

Dr Mwele Malecela died of cancer on 10 February 2022 in Zurich.

Berlin, 27.01.2022 - On the occasion of the World Day against Neglected Tropical Diseases (World-NTD-Day), Niels Annen, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). spoke about global health, past and future strategies of the BMZ. The discussion was moderated by Dr. Jakob Simmank, Head of the Health Department of ZEIT online.

Berlin, 27.01.2022 - Rwanda, Nigeria and Tanzania were the first African countries to sign the Kigali Declaration to ending Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) at a virtual ceremony. The declaration by partners from endemic countries, industry, donor countries, private philanthropists, research institutions and civil society organisations follows up on the London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases of 2012 and aims to support the World Health Organization's roadmap to NTD control. The signatories of the Kigali Declaration commit to play their part at global, regional, national, community and partnership levels to eradicate, eliminate or control neglected tropical diseases by 2030. The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) plans to sign the Declaration on behalf of the Federal Government.

On the occasion of the launch of the Kigali Declaration the 100% committed campaign to ending neglected tropical diseases started. In Germany, more than 100+ people  joined  making a  commitment to  the 100% committed campaign. A photo collage shows 100+ of these committed supporters from civil society, research, the private sector and politics, including the doctor and TV presenter Dr Eckart von Hirschhausen, the Minister of Economics of the Federal State of Hesse, Tarek Al-Wazir, members of the German Bundestag, renowned scientists and the entire board of the German Network against Neglected Tropical Diseases with its spokesperson Prof. Dr Achim Hörauf.

++ World Health Summit 2021 with a discussion on digitalisation and NTDs

Berlin, 26.10.2021 "Neglected tropical diseases are not neglected by the German Government" declared Paul Zubeil of the Federal Ministry of Health at the World Health Summit Workshop "New Impulses from the WHO-NTD-Roadmap 2030, Digitalization as Opportunity for Improving Health Management Systems". He listed numerous activities of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Research and the Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development in the context of NTD control. He also stressed that more data should be collected on the gender-related impact of NTDs in the future. An overview of how and which digital tools can improve programme work to combat NTDs at different stages, from education to treatment and follow-up/examination of patients, was given by Dr Babar Qureshi from CBM. Carolin Gunesh from DAHW described specifically the work with the digital app Audio Pedia , which is used especially in the field of education. She underlined how important it is to adapt the programmes to the respective conditions on site. As NTD patients are usually among the poorest of the poor. Often, they lack simple things like electricity or are sometimes unable to read and write. The importance of digital systems for data, especially in the supply chain, was emphasised by Dr Sultani Hadley Matendechero of the Kenya National Public Health Institute. Such a tool is currently being tested in a pilot project in Kenya and will be expanded if successful. Dr Pauline Mwinzi, WHO-ESPEN (Expanded Special Project for Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases) described how the ESPEN collect tool collects real time data and makes it publicly available via the ESPEN portal. She emphasised that this data is key to success in the fight against NTDs.

The discussion was moderated by Dr. Dr. Carsten Köhler, University of Tübingen and Prof. Dr. Achim Hörauf, IMMIP Bonn. For the sixth time, the German Network against Neglected Tropical Diseases organised a session at the World Health Summit.