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This manual describes local, bottom-up planning (“microplanning”) to foster effective implementation and monitoring of public health programmes.

At the 13th Annual NTD NGO Network (NNN) Conference the Schistosomiasis and Soil-Transmitted Helminthiasis Disease Specific Group held meeting using the conference theme: NTDs in health systems - innovate, integrate, & empower. Recording and slides available here.

Over 65 countries have committed to the School Meals Coalition, established at the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit, with the specific goals of restoring national school meals and complementary school health programs to pre-pandemic coverage by 2023. t is critical for public health actors to utilize schools to implement public health initiatives to reach large numbers of children and ensure these students can effectively participate in school as healthy learners. As such, school-based MDAs are an example of cross-sector collaboration that responds to the needs of the learner (21, 26). School-based deworming programs, when combined with activities to reinforce WASH infrastructure, health, and hygiene education (27–29), have the compound benefit of bridging gendered education disparities, particularly as girls reach the age of menstruation (30, 31).

Schistosome and Snail Resource (SSR) is Wellcome Trust funded, open access biomedical resource that aims to generate and make freely available live schistosome life-cycle stages, snail intermediate hosts and related material for schistosomiasis research.

This companion document provides guidance on what actions are needed – by programme managers, countries, international organizations, and non-State actors – to take a One Health approach to achieve the WHO NTD road map 2021-2030 targets.

Precision mapping, or sub-district mapping, is recommended by the WHO and the GSA, and rolled out by national programmes in collaboration with partners as a method for refining a targeted treatment strategy, to ensure optimum treatment and improved efficiencies in resource utilization.

The threat to public health that is presented by zoonotic spillover of pathogens from animal reservoirs is predicted to increase with rapid anthropogenic changes and global trends such as migration and changing land use.

Recording of the COR-NTD Research Links Series webinar about putting schistosomiasis precision mapping into practice.

In order to end a disease, you need to know where it is. In Ethiopia, the Federal Ministry of Health has partnered with the SCI Foundation and the END Fund, to map the prevalence of schistosomiasis.This survey was a small sample, so that the Federal Ministry of Health can calibrate its national survey. After five years of mass drug administration in schools, this new mapping survey will help design the next intervention that will hopefully end this disease in Ethiopia.

WHO road map for neglected tropical diseases 2021−2030 and the schistosomiasis-specific summary of targets, milestones and critical actions from the WHO roadmap annex.

Drs Upendo Mwingira, Steffi Knopp, Fiona Fleming and the GSA team present findings from the COR NTD schistosomiasis elimination pre-meeting sessions and discuss the next steps in consolidating operational research questions into a pathway to develop an M&E framework for schistosomiasis elimination.

NALA Foundation Behaviour change communication and WASH project in Bench Sheko and West Omo Zones, Ethiopia

The following are recommendations and best practices to consider when developing plans for safely restarting mass drug administration (MDA) campaigns in the context of COVID-19.

This resource document complements the WHO guidance. Firstly, it reiterates guidance on precautionary measures to consider when planning for re-start; secondly, it provides ideas and practical examples on operationalizing the guidance so that it can be applied to field activities.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many key neglected tropical disease (NTD) activities have been postponed. This hindrance comes at a time when the NTDs are progressing towards their ambitious goals for 2030. Mathematical modelling on several NTDs, namely gambiense sleeping sickness, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminthiases (STH), trachoma, and visceral leishmaniasis, shows that the impact of this disruption will vary across the diseases.

Dr 'Kuor Kumoji's talk on "Opposing misinformation", part of the COR NTD premeeting on Fake News and Trust in NTD Health Programs.

Together with the Global Schistosomiasis Alliance, the COR-NTD Secretariat hosted an online meeting on "Fake News & Trust in NTD Health Programs" to identify operational research questions for best practices in countering misinformation and empowering communities to identify fact from fiction, relative to NTD control programs.

In this ISNTD Connect GSA series webinar, Professor Tchuem Tchuenté from the University of Yaoundé I, presented and discussed the control & elimination of schistosomiasis in Cameroon: introducing the Roadmap towards 2030.

This toolkit aims to strengthen the capacity of researchers working on infectious diseases of poverty by incorporating an intersectional gender approach.

Did you miss the NNN 2020 Conference? Were you unable to attend a workshop? You can watch the recordings of plenaries, workshops and rapid fire presentations here.

The report examines the burden of schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthiasis and strategies for their control in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe, and estimates the potential economic gains of meeting the WHO’s elimination goals for these diseases in each country.

In this GSA-COR NTD pre-meeting video, schistosomiasis experts discuss the existing and novel tools and strategies needed on the last mile towards interrupting transmission.

Water, Sanitation and Behaviour Change for Schistosomiasis-endemic Communities. A discussion paper on the approach developed by Unlimit Health.

"​​Where can a 50-year career in schistosomiasis take you geographically and scientifically?", a conversation with Dr. Dan Colley (Professor Emeritus of Microbiology at the University of Georgia) & Dr. Goylette Chami (Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford).

The first meeting of the Diagnostic Technical Advisory Group (DTAG), an advisory group to the WHO Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases, was held at the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Geneva, Switzerland, on 30–31 October 2019.
 

WHO Western Pacific Region Regional Action Framework for Control and Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases in the Western Pacific
 

As schistosomiasis poses a threat to people of all ages, unfortunate gaps exist in current treatment coverage and associated monitoring efforts, preventing subsequent health benefits to preschool-aged children as well as certain adolescents and adults.  Current omission of these age groups from treatment and monitoring exacerbates health inequities and has long-term consequences for sustainable schistosomiasis control.
 

Derick Osakunor, from the University of Edinburgh, discusses the current treatment gaps in different age groups and how these are hindering the schistosomiasis goal of "elimination as a public health problem".

To better assess the infection burden within pre-school aged children this article provides a comparative assessment of the prevalence of Schistosoma mansoni in pre-school-aged children by urine circulating cathodic antigen (CCA) dipsticks, real-time PCR Taqman® faecal assays and Kato-Katz coproscopy.

The 146th session of WHO’s Executive Board, meeting in February 2020 requested the Director-General to develop, in consultations with Member States and stakeholders, the new road map for neglected tropical diseases for the period 2021–2030.

The Task Force for Global Health organised a panel discussion for World NTD Day: Beat NTDs: World NTD Day Symposium

Guide for Mapping Neglected Tropical Diseases Amenableto PreventiveChemotherapy in the African Region

The atlas of schistososmiasis and STH transmission in Cameroon, an important tool to assist the ministry of health, decision makers and stakeholders with activites to control and eliminate these diseases.

Delivery of preventive chemotherapy through mass drug administration (MDA) is used to control or eliminate five of the most common neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). The success of an MDA campaign relies on the ability of drug distributors and their supervisors—the NTD front-line workers—to reach populations at risk of NTDs. In the past, our understanding of the demographics of these workers has been limited, but with increased access to sex-disaggregated data, we begin to explore the implications of gender and sex for the success of NTD front-line workers.

Schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthiases: numbers of people treated in 2018

Meeting Report: APPG on Malaria and NTDs Meeting: The Launch of DFID’s Flagship Neglected Tropical Disease Programme, “ASCEND”
 

The Schistosomiasis Consortium for Operational Research and Evaluation implemented multi-country, cluster randomized trials to compare effectiveness of community-wide and school-based treatment (SBT) regimens on prevalence and intensity of schistosomiasis. The authors conclude that programs using annual CWT are likely to achieve better overall S. mansoni morbidity control than those implementing only biennial SBT.
 

The WHO AFRO Expanded Special Project for the Elimination of NTDs has developed a new tool to support countries to optimize MDA implementation in the AFRO region.

The new WHO and NTD NGO Network interactive online toolkit to build effective WASH-NTD partnerships is out now.

Evaluation of a 5-year cluster-randomised trial to assess the effect of different interventions for elimination of urogenital schistosomiasis as a public health problem and interruption of transmission.

In this Personal View, we aim to examine the next steps that need to be taken towards ensuring equitable treatment access, including health system integration and the role of endemic countries in ensuring medicines are delivered to patients. We argue that the expansion of medicine donation programmes and the development of new medicines are not the primary solutions to sustaining and expanding the growth of neglected tropical disease programmes. To enable equitable access and efficient use of existing medicines, research is needed now on how best to integrate the treatment of neglected tropical diseases into local health systems. A comprehensive approach should be used, which combines mass drug administration with on-demand access to treatment. Increased commitment by endemic countries, when possible, around the ownership of treatment campaigns is essential to improve access to medicines for neglected tropical diseases.

A generic model that can be used for risk assessment of larviciding and mollusciciding.

The WHO's 13th General Programme of Work (GPW13) approved by the seventy-first World Health Assembly (WHA).

The WHO NTD department Update on the global status of implementation of preventive chemotherapy (PC) for schistosomiasis and other PC NTDs.

THe WHO and NNN step-by-step practical document and toolkit to cross-sectoral collaborative work for WASH and NTD agencies, departments and practicioners.

In 2017, almost 99 million people were treated for schistosomiasis. This includes 81.1 million school-aged children, representing 68% coverage worldwide.

NTDeliver Supply Chain Tool to track donated medicines shipping

Schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthiases: number of people treated in 2016

Aujourd’hui, 57 pays se sont engagés à éradiquer les maladies connues sous le nom de « maladies tropicales négligées » (MTN) à travers l’adoption d’une résolution au XVIIe Sommet de la Francophonie.

SCI release their new strategy to eliminate parasitic worm infections. SCI have achieved a lot since their foundation in 2002 and now support the delivery of millions of treatments each year. Download their new strategy leaflet to see how they aim to drive the elimination of these parasitic infections.

World Health Organization. (‎2012)‎. Accelerating work to overcome the global impact of neglected tropical diseases : a roadmap for implementation : executive summary. Geneva : World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/iris/handle/10665/70809

Female genital schistosomiasis (FGS), can triple the risk of women contracting HIV, yet safe and effective donated medicines are available but not currently reaching everyone. Read Uniting To Combat NTDs Policy Briefing to find out more.

Moving Schistosomiasis Out of the Red: Action Plan and Next Steps

GSA partners and stakeholders meeting to refine and adopt a Strategic Action Plan for schistosomiasis control and elimination and discuss the identification of key next steps in putting the plan into practice.

This Female Genital Schistosomiasis Pocket Atlas has been developed as a visual aid to raise awareness of the infection and to facilitate clinical diagnosis by clinical health-care professionals working in low-resource settings, especially in rural areas where schistosomiasis is endemic.