It’s estimated that 12.4 million people are at risk of contracting one or more NTDs.
We carry out mass drug administration in Burkina Faso, distributing medication to treat and prevent communities from three NTDs.
Thanks to the Accelerate programme we are helping to provide treatment for trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness. And under the UK aid flagship NTD programme, Ascend West and Central Africa, as a consortium, Sightsavers along with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), Mott Macdonald, and the SCI Foundation, is supporting ministries to protect communities in Burkina Faso from lymphatic filariasis and river blindness.
In 2021, Sightsavers distributed more than 52,000 treatments across the country and trained more than 1,600 community volunteers, enabling them to gather data and give out medication to protect against these diseases.
“Our ambition is to ensure that no one in this village will ever again become blind from river blindness,” says Karama Mariam, just one of the many hard-working volunteers who distributes medication to protect against the disease.
Read the storySince 1991, Sightsavers been helping Mali’s ministry of health to treat and prevent this blinding disease. Now the country is on track to banish it for good.
Pelagie is an entomologist who’s paving the way for more women to lead in the fight against neglected tropical diseases.
On 30 January 2022, Sightsavers staff and supporters joined the global event to raise awareness about eliminating neglected tropical diseases.
The signing and passing into law of a new social decree that protects the rights of people with disabilities was years in the making. But how did we get to this historic moment?
As Côte d’Ivoire completes its final operations as part of the Accelerate programme to fight trachoma, hear the stories of some of the people involved.
A round-up of our work that your donations are helping to support, including news from India, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Malawi.