Non-governmental organisations, aid donors and 13 global drug companies came together, in the largest coordinated effort on NTDs, to back the 'London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases'.
Almost US$800 million was pledged and new research initiatives were launched at what Margaret Chan, WHO secretary-general, called the "most coordinated initiative" in her 30 years in public health.
The declaration agreed to "sustain, expand and extend" drug supplies to help eradicate Guinea worm disease; to eliminate lymphatic filariasis, leprosy, sleeping sickness and blinding trachoma; and to control schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminthes, Chagas disease, visceral leishmaniasis and river blindness (onchocerciasis).These ten diseases are some of the 17 NTDs that affect more than a billion people globally.
The roadmap sets up a mechanism to track progress towards the 2020 goals, and a scorecard system that will track whether partners are meeting commitments.
Alexandre Lourenço Jaime Manguele, health minister of Mozambique, whose government aims to treat 27 million people by 2015, said: "The support of donors and donation of much-needed drugs ... can have a huge impact in a country like Mozambique".
For some of the most deadly NTDs, control or elimination will be achievable only with future commitment to R&D, agreed Bernard Pécoul executive director of the Geneva-based Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), one of the endorsers of the initiative.
He said "new drugs and diagnostics are urgently needed to improve patient care, respond to the challenge of drug resistance and enhance prospects for disease elimination".
Some US$785 was pledged by donors and philanthropists at the meeting. The largest pledges came from the Gates Foundation, US$363 million over the next five years, some of it for drugs innovation and discovery; and £195 million (around US$308 million) by 2015 from the UK Department for International Development (DFID).
