Global Threats of Viral Infections
The developed world is familiar with global threats of viral infections that produce fear in populations both rich and the poor. The pandemic of SARS, avian flu and swine flu has cost the global economy about 200,000 million dollars. These threats arise frequently and unpredictably as a result of human contact with animals. You need a rapid response from governments, UN agencies, regulators and the pharmaceutical industry for the purposes of coordination, surveillance and vaccine production.
But the poorest people – those living on less than $ 2 per day – is often not considered important when there is a pandemic threat. They do not contribute significantly to the global economy and the health systems of their countries work with a small fraction of the advanced economies devoted to the health of their populations.
Conversely, the view that developed countries have diseases in the developing world is that only three are important: AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. This stems from the power of lobbyists and the recognition that these diseases could threaten the developed world. Consequently, these diseases are a disproportionate amount of funding for research and control, while other diseases that kill, blinded, deformed and leave many more disabled persons – the “bottom billion” – have limited access to care health.
These infections are called Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD for its acronym in English). They are not very familiar in the developed world, and their names are often difficult to pronounce: filariasis (elephantiasis), onchocerciasis (river blindness), schistosomiasis (billharziasis) and others, particularly intestinal worms.