Neglected Tropical Diseases of Public Health Importance in India: Current Status and the Way Ahead

Introduction: In global health, critical challenges have erupted from infectious diseases, including the emergence and re-emergence of old and new infectious diseases. This is directly attributed to rapid human development including massive demographic changes, increasing population, and environmental degradation to name a few. Despite tremendous advances in the health of its citizens who live below the poverty line, India bears a disproportionately high burden of neglected tropical diseases with over half of the 20 WHO classified neglected tropical diseases at endemic levels. In a global fight against these diseases, India occupies a unique place as a country that despite being deeply affected by these devastating and deadly illnesses, also holds solutions on how innovation might eliminate these ancient maladies.

Aims and Objectives: The present article reviews the common neglected tropical diseases of India, their magnitude and current status with respect to interventions for their control, challenges in the path of their elimination and the comprehensive all-inclusive approaches that can be adopted to curb the tropical disease burden of the Indian sub-continent.

Methodology: The present study is literature review. PubMed, EMBASE and Scopus databases were searched using the key words “ neglected tropical diseases”, “infectious diseases”, “treatment of tropical diseases” and their MeSH terms in any possible combination using the logical operators “AND” and “OR”. The reference list of all the studies was screened to identify other studies of interest. The search was reiterated until July 2021.

Results: Though the progress towards elimination of neglected tropical diseases is already underway, a concerted strategy is needed to assist the elimination efforts for these diseases. An all-inclusive policy to foster research and innovation in drug discovery, diagnostics, and vaccine development in neglected tropical diseases is lacking. There is also an absence of structured training of healthcare workers to improve their skills and capacity in disease management in endemic and disease prone areas.

Conclusion: To obtain the high objective of improving health and reducing vulnerabilities, it is important that healthcare workers and professionals from other backgrounds bind together to broaden the perspectives that are needed to address. There is a call for a comprehensive policy for neglected diseases research in India to foster drugs, diagnostics, and vaccine innovation, critical for evolving needs for elimination programs.