Health and poverty are intimately linked. Poor communities often lack basic health infrastructure and trained medical professionals, leaving citizens without the basic healthcare services they need. People living in poverty also lack access to crucial resources such as essential medicines, leading to the continuation of diseases that are largely preventable. Malnutrition and disease impair children’s cognitive and intellectual development, decreasing future wage earnings by over 43 percent. Disease also hinders adults’ ability to work productively and provide for their families. As a result, poverty and poor health are cyclical: the “bottom billion” living on less than $1.25 a day are unable to prevent or treat the diseases that plague them, and those very diseases promote the continuation of poverty.
The neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)—the most common infections of the world’s poor—dramatically exemplify the connection between health and poverty. NTDs flourish in environments with dirty water and a lack of sanitation, and directly impact an individuals’ ability to develop, learn and lead a productive life. Although NTDs are treatable, communities often lack access to essential medications. Thus, 1.4 billion people are infected with NTDs and remain trapped in poverty.
In 2001, United Nations member states adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—a set of international development goals targeted for achievement by 2015—to address the extreme poverty plaguing many regions of the world. The MDGs acknowledge improving global health as a necessary means to eradicating poverty. The majority of the MDGs are in some way connected to health; three of the eight focus directly on health issues.
NTDs are a key part of the “other diseases” mentioned in MDG Six: “Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases.” NTDs are also relevant in a number of other MDGs. For instance, mothers and children are disproportionately affected by NTDs, so controlling these devastating infections improves maternal and child health (MDGs Four and Five). Moreover, the impact of NTDs extends beyond the ability to fulfill MDG targets that are directly related to health. Intestinal worm infections, for example, diminish cognitive development and keep children out of school. Thus, NTDs prevent children in developing nations from completing a full course of primary schooling—an aim specified in MDG Two.
It is of the utmost importance that the global community work together to control and eventually eliminate NTDs. Only then will we be able to make tangible strides toward eliminating global poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
