Activities of the DNTDs

Reports from Ethiopia, Ghana, Sudan

Stockholm/Berlin - 24 August 2022. At the Stockholm World Water Week, the German Network together with the German WASH Network and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH reported from practical work:

Pauline Mwinzi, Technical, Expanded Special Project for Elimination of NTDs (ESPEN), World Health Organization, Regional Office for Africa WHO underlined the uniqueness of the data collection on WASH in the ESPEN-NTD portal. The data presented there on water, sanitation and hygiene, fill an important data gap.

Veterinarian Eiman Ahmed, Programme Manager of Veterinarians Without Borders Germany in Sudan spoke about the WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) approach in a multi-sectoral project on food security and livelihoods, WASH, income generation activities and protection of women and children.

Ahmed Bekere, Team Lead, German Leprosy and Relief Association (GLRA) Ethiopia described that the multi-sectoral work of One Health, WASH and NTD response needed to be much better aligned. He said his work shows that cross-sectoral and multidisciplinary One Health coordination is needed to achieve interruption of ongoing transmission, diagnosis and treatment of current human and animal cases.

Baridueh Badon, Project manager Access to water, Global Health Institute Merck, described a programme in Ghana that seeks to strengthen health systems and reduce infections, including waterborne diseases such as schistosomiasis, in different districts. Research, access to water and training of health workers are important components.

Wolfram Morgenroth Klein, Head of the Department of Pandemic Prevention, One Health, Animal Health, Biodiversity, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), underlined that combating NTDs and promoting WASH are clearly defined objectives of the Ministry's One Health Strategy. The event ended with Daniel Eibach's (BMZ) appeal to coordinate WASH and NTD activities even more closely.

Nadja Münstermann, Advisor, Sector Project One Health, GIZ, referred to the One Health Platform PANORAMA.

+ + + Historic opportunity at Kigali Summit

Kigali/Berlin 23.06.2022 -The Kigali Summit on Malaria and NTDs celebrated the Kigali Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases. Germany supported the fight against neglected tropical diseases by signing the declaration in 2022. In a video message, Niels Annen, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) underlined numerous commitments of Germany in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) and West African Economic Community regions, the commitment with a special focus on One Health and building laboratory capacity and diagnostics for the fight against neglected tropical diseases. The Kigali Declaration builds on the progress made over the last two decades since the London Declaration.

++ Signatories commit to play their part in ensuring NTDs are eradicated, eliminated or controlled by 2030

Berlin 15.06.2022 - The Kigali Summit on Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) is being hosted by the Government of Rwanda in parallel with the Commonwealth Heads of State and Government Meeting (CHOGM). The focus is on the Kigali Declaration on NTDs. Programmatically, the Kigali Declaration is based on the WHO Roadmap 2030 against Neglected Tropical Diseases. It focuses on country ownership of NTD programmes, integration and intersectoral collaboration to ensure that they are long-term and sustainable. The Declaration provides an opportunity to mobilise the political will, international community commitment, resources and action needed to end unnecessary suffering from neglected and poverty-associated tropical diseases. The signatories of this declaration commit to play their part in ensuring that NTDs are eradicated, eliminated or controlled by 2030.

The German government, represented by Svenja Schulze, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), was the first European country to sign the Kigali Declaration in January 2022.

Members of the German Network against Neglected Tropical Diseases (DNTDs) will be on site to support the German commitment against neglected tropical diseases.

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.