ENVISION: A World Free of Neglected Tropical Diseases

Controlling and eliminating seven neglected tropical diseases in low-income countries around the world

One-sixth of the worldwide population—more than 1 billion people—suffers from one or more neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). These diseases devastate the world’s most vulnerable populations, striking the almost exclusively poor and powerless people in rural areas and urban slums in low-income countries.

Many NTDs cause severe disfigurement and disability, including blindness. NTDs come hand-in-hand with poverty because they thrive where access to clean water and sanitation is limited. These diseases, in turn, contribute to poverty because they can impair intellectual development in children, reduce school enrollment, and stymie economic productivity.

Seven of the most common NTDs are

• Lymphatic filariasis
• Trachoma
• Onchocerciasis (river blindness)
• Schistosomiasis
• Three soil-transmitted helminth infections—hookworm, roundworm, and whipworm. 

All seven NTDs can be controlled and treated through administration of drugs to entire populations or mass drug administration, which use safe, single-dose medicines donated by pharmaceutical companies. Treatment of at-risk populations for multiple years can lead to control or elimination of these diseases in communities and can relieve populations from daily suffering.

Improving Treatment Coverage for the Seven Most Common NTDs

From 2011 to 2019, RTI led the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) ENVISION, a project that aimed to empower governments of endemic countries to lead national NTD programs and scale up the delivery of preventive chemotherapy for the seven most common NTDs. 

Through ENVISION, we improved the evidence base for determining and assessing action to control and eliminate NTDs, increased treatment coverage among at-risk populations, and strengthened national health systems to respond to these diseases.

Among the major implementing and coordinating partners supporting NTD control and elimination, ENVISION played a lead coordinating role to ensure that gaps in disease mapping were adequately addressed.

ENVISION’s efforts focused on supporting countries to scale up their mass drug administration efforts to 100% geographic coverage for at-risk populations, and examining program performance in reaching those at risk and living in areas targeted for preventive chemotherapy.

Through ENVISION, we worked closely with NTD program managers to help countries measure the impact of their programs and make important determinations about the continuation or discontinuation of treatment and other complementary interventions.

The ENVISION project developed, disseminated, and provided training and technical assistance on the tools and resources necessary for effective NTD program implementation. ENVISION also supported the implementation of many training courses to strengthen the capacity of national NTD programs.