Press Release - Spotlighting Neglected Diseases: Trachoma, Leishmaniasis, and Schistosomiasis

January 8, 2009

PRESS RELEASE 01/08/2009 | For Immediate Release

FEATURE STORIES 2009
Spotlighting Neglected Diseases
by Beryl Lieff Benderly

Dear Subscribers - 

Infectious diseases have recently been big news. The worldwide HIV/AIDS epidemic shares the media spotlight with such highly publicized infections as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Lyme disease, West Nile virus, bird flu and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). These headliners share several key characteristics: they are dangerous and relatively unfamiliar and they potentially threaten residents of rich countries.

But some other diseases get almost no attention, despite bringing suffering and death to many millions around the world.  Rather than threatening prosperous and well-informed citizens of countries with good health services, however, they attack some of world's poorest people, who live in isolated rural villages and urban slums that lack health care and safe water.  And not only do these diseases thrive among the poor, but they actually promote poverty by weakening, maiming, stigmatizing and isolating their victims and destroying their ability to work, learn and contribute to their families and communities.

Even more shocking, however, these diseases have well-known, inexpensive and effective preventive and treatment interventions.  They exact their terrible toll only because of the world's neglect and inattention.

In the coming months, the Disease Control Priorities Project (www.dcp2.org) will spotlight three of these neglected scourges and the steps that can end the suffering they cause. 
 
Watch for our stories on:
 
Trachoma - the major worldwide cause of blindness;
 
Schistosomiasis - which weakens and kills; and
 
Leishmaniasis - that brings disfigurement and death.

Beryl Lieff Benderly is a prize-winning Washington journalist and author specializing in health, behavior, and science policy. Her articles appear in major magazines and on the Internet, and she is a regular contributor to the Science magazine website. Her eight books include In Her Own Right: The IOM Guide to Women’s Health Issues.
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Images courtesy of:
Trachoma: (c) 2005 Basil A. Safi, Courtesy of Photoshare
Schistosomiasis (c) 1994 Della Dash, Courtesy of Photoshare
Leishmaniasis: (c) 2005 Shiraz J Khan, Syed Muneeb, Courtesy of Dermatology Online Journal