Neglected tropical diseases infect more than a billion people every year

Lymphatic filariasis. Onchocerciasis. Dracunculiasis. These are the names of diseases, just a few of a group of maladies called neglected tropical diseases. They infect one billion people every year.

Those contracting one of these diseases - and there are seventeen of them - can be left disfigured, crippled or suffering cognitive impairment. Many must also endure social discrimination. Tragically, most of these diseases can be treated for as little as fifty cents a year.

Like the Ebola virus, neglected tropical diseases - or NTDs, as they are called - are found in Africa. Unlike Ebola, they also wreak havoc on human lives in other parts of the world. The poor living in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, also fall victim to the devastation wrought by NTDs. 

For the past 18 years, Dr. Julie Jacobson,an epidemiologist, has been working to eradicate neglected tropical diseases. She is now Senior Programme Officer at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, supporting programs that fight NTDs, and promote public awareness of them.