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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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for the group of low-income countries, where the domestic investment target for NTDs is
nonetheless still well below 1% of domestic expenditure on health. For all income groups,
domestic investment targets decrease after 2020 in absolute (dollar) terms, as coverage
targets are achieved and NTDs are controlled, eliminated or eradicated.
The report argues that reforms leading to universal health coverage provide an opportunity
to bolster public and pooled private financing for universal coverage against NTDs. It
foresees, however, that the rebalancing of the financing mix towards less foreign aid and
more domestic investment will take time, especially in low-income countries.
Multilateral development banks have a role to play in facilitating the progressive shift in
NTD financing from grants to zero-interest loans to low-interest loans to non-concessional
loans and domestic revenues. Increasingly, NTD investments are being made through
innovative financing mechanisms, with the goal of overcoming some of the perceived
problems with traditional mechanisms that have focussed more on inputs and activities than
on outputs and outcomes, and may have underemphasized adaptation to local situations.
Key interventions on the path to universal coverage
WHO recommends an integrated approach to overcoming the global impact of NTDs
through five interventions: innovative and intensified disease management; preventive
chemotherapy; vector ecology and management; veterinary public-health services; and the
provision of safe water, sanitation and hygiene.
These interventions are being implemented with variable intensity. Progress in increasing
coverage with preventive chemotherapy has resulted in hundreds of millions of people
receiving treatment annually. In 2012 alone, more than 800 million people received
preventive chemotherapy for at least one disease, a significant advance from 2011 when 729
million people were covered. Global coverage with preventive chemotherapy has expanded
significantly over the past few years and is expected to further scale up.
Innovative and intensified disease management is used for the diagnosis and treatment of
complex NTDs. This approach lowers the burden of mortality and morbidity of five diseases
through early case detection and timely diagnosis. More than 520 000 new cases were treated
in 2012, and about 5 million since the start of the century. Continued efforts using existing
control methods, including active case-finding and disease-surveillance, have resulted since
2009 in fewer than 10 000 new cases of human African trypanosomiasis reported annually
for the first time in 30 years, with 6314 cases in 2013.