It takes much more than medicine to eliminate neglected tropical diseases. In Nepal, the Ministry of Health is leading efforts to eliminate lymphatic filariasis (LF) and ensure that every person in the country is free from the impact of the disabling, mosquito-borne disease. Health workers are crucial to the success of Nepal's efforts. Follow along as Pushpa Devi Adhikari, a community health worker, takes the time to educate people in Baglung District, Nepal about the importance of taking medicine to prevent the spread of LF.

The Union health ministry on Thursday launched a mass drug administration exercise in nine endemic states to reach its target of lymphatic filariasis elimination in the next four years.

Schistosomiasis remains a public health issue and the need for accurate and affordable diagnostics is crucial in the elimination of the disease. While molecular diagnostics are highly effective, they are expensive, with the main costs been associated with DNA extraction. The DNA dipstick is a rapid, affordable and simple purification method that allows DNA to be extracted from diagnostic samples within 30 s. We aimed to optimise the DNA dipstick method for samples from mice and egg-spiked human samples.

Automated diagnosis of urogenital schistosomiasis using digital microscopy images of urine slides is an essential step toward the elimination of schistosomiasis as a disease of public health concern in Sub-Saharan African countries. We create a robust image dataset of urine samples obtained from field settings and develop a two-stage diagnosis framework for urogenital schistosomiasis.

This study aims to assess the combination of anterior lamellar recession (ALR) with blepharoplasty, suprasternal fixation, and internal eyelash bulb extirpation of aberrant lashes posteriorly located in patients with any grade of upper eyelid trachomatous cicatricial entropion.

This study showed the combination of ALR with blepharoplasty, suprasternal fixation, and cauterization or internal bulb extirpation of posteriorly located lashes procedure resulted in a high success rate in patients with any form of UCE with no increase in incidence or degree of lagophthalmos associated with UCE.

No matter who you are or where you are from, it’s almost inevitable that climate change will have a major impact on your life. Whether it be rising sea levels or changes in food production, it threatens to upend our lives and ecosystems. It can even affect which diseases you could be at risk for in your region.

This is because many vectors, especially cold-blooded ones, are better able to spread in warmer climates. Thus, as temperatures rise, it is likely that vectors such as mosquitos and ticks will be able to travel farther north and also be active for longer period of time during the year, which in turn means an increase in the number of vector-borne diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever, in both humans and animals. A study published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases estimates that by 2050, the number of people at risk for diseases transmitted by two species of mosquitos, Aedes albopictus and A. aegypti, could increase by half a billion.

Public health insecticides play a crucial role in malaria control and elimination programmes. Many other arthropods, including mechanical and biological vectors of infectious diseases, have similar indoor feeding or resting behaviours, or both, as malaria mosquitoes, and could be exposed to the same insecticides. In this Personal View, we show that little is known about the insecticide susceptibility status and the extent of exposure to malaria interventions of other arthropod species. We highlight that there is an urgent need to better understand the selection pressure for insecticide resistance in those vectors, to ensure current and future active ingredients remain effective in targeting a broad range of arthropod species, allowing us to prevent and control future outbreaks of infectious diseases other than malaria.

The Secretariat of the Coalition for Operational Research on Neglected Tropical Diseases (COR-NTD) is pleased to announce the call for COR-NTD Research Links. This virtual series will include webinars, working meetings, research updates, etc., to share information about NTD operational research and related topics and will take place throughout the year.