Overview
World Health Organization (WHO) releases the third global report tracking progress toward the 2030 targets outlined in Ending the Neglect to Attain the Sustainable Development Goals: A Road Map for Neglected Tropical Diseases 2021–2030. The report highlights a broad spectrum of activities, achievements, and challenges related to neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) across all six WHO regions.
It presents epidemiological and programmatic data mainly from 2023, collected and analyzed in 2024. Where available, data from 2024 have also been included; in instances where 2023 data were not accessible, earlier information is used. The report further summarizes major developments from 2024 and features key events from the early months of 2025.
Progress update
- In 2023, an estimated 1.495 billion people required interventions against NTDs, 122 million fewer than in 2022 and a 32% decrease from the 2010 baseline.
- Between 2015 and 2021, the disease burden dropped from 17.2 million to 14.1 million DALYs, while NTD-related deaths decreased from an estimated 139 000 to 119 000. The number of people affected by NTDs declined from 1.9 billion in 1990 to just over 1 billion in 2021.
- In 2023, 867.1 million people were treated for at least one NTD, 99% of whom received preventive chemotherapy.
- By the end of 2024, eight countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, Plurinational State of Bolivia and Uruguay) had interrupted domiciliary vector transmission of Chagas disease in their entire national territory or in defined areas.
- Improvements were observed across several cross-cutting areas, including enhanced integration in the implementation of preventive chemotherapy, the broader adoption of integrated strategies for skin-NTDs, the increased inclusion of NTDs in national health strategies, plans and essential service packages, and the wider adoption of guidelines for management of NTD-related disabilities.
- Nevertheless, progress slowed or stagnated in several key areas: in reducing deaths from vector-borne diseases, in expanding access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), in protecting population from catastrophic out-of-pocket expenditures, in ensuring complete reporting on all NTDs and in collecting gender-disaggregated data.
Read more: Global Report on Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) 2025
WHO
- World NTD Day
- World NTD Day: A new day in the fight against NTDs
- World NTD Day 2023: Act Now. Act together. Invest in NTDs Day
- World Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) Day: Beat NTDs: For Good. For All.
