About Us
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) Act to End Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) | East Program supports national governments to reach NTD control and elimination goals through proven, cost-effective public health interventions and also provides critical support to countries in their journey to self-reliance, helping them to create sustainable programming for NTD control within robust and resilient health systems.
Act to End NTDs | East is led by RTI International, with a consortium of partners including The Carter Center, Fred Hollows Foundation, Light for the World, Results for Development, Save the Children, Sightsavers, and WI-HER. For more information can be found at acteast.org.
About the NTD Toolbox
The NTD Toolbox is an initiative led by Act to End NTDs | East that seeks to build capacity and understanding of NTD program implementation throughout the global NTD community. It is a collection of tools, resources, training materials, videos, and guidance to be used by NTD program managers and other implementing staff. With the focus on increasing awareness and understanding around programmatic work for Preventative Chemotherapy NTDs, the Toolbox is not a collection of reports, and does not cover materials on Case Management NTDs. The Toolbox consists of the following characteristics:
- Trusted: With tools and resources that are curated and in line with WHO guidance and best practices from national NTD programs.
- Collaborative: Built to be collaborative in nature, pulling resources from across global NTD programs. It includes tools developed by many different groups, including WHO, USAID’s ENVISION Project managed by RTI, and many other organizations.
- Accessible: Designed to be accessible for all NTD program staff, including those in hard to reach areas. Thus, the site was built to support low bandwidth internet connections, with tools and resources translated in up to five languages.
- Adaptive: Maintained and updated with the understanding that global NTD program needs are always changing, with tools, resources, and features that reflect those changes.
- Focus on learning and sustainability: Designed to help foster collective learning, capacity-building, and sustainability of global NTD programs.
Notes on Site Functionality
Searches
Content on the Toolbox can be searched on the main page, and can be filtered by language, phase, and resource type. Note that the number that appears in the drop down menus for the filter options indicates the number of resources available for each category. This number is cross-referenced with other filter options, and thus will change depending on what other options are selected.
The icons that appear in search results reflect the categories for disease type, phase, and resource type that each resource relates to. The number icons may appear more than once if the resource relates to more than one sub-phase within particular phase type.
Featured
The "Featured" section at the bottom of the search page includes select resources that are popular and recommended for users.
About NTDs
Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) represent a group of diverse diseases that cause significant morbidity and mortality worldwide but have until recently received limited attention from the affluent regions of the world. More than 1 billion people – one-sixth of the world’s population – suffer from one or more NTDs. These diseases affect the world’s most vulnerable populations, almost exclusively poor and powerless people living in rural areas and urban slums of low-income countries. Their impact on individuals and communities is devastating. Many of them cause severe disfigurement and disabilities, including blindness.
NTDs coexist with poverty because they thrive where access to clean water and sanitation is limited, and people live without protection from disease vectors. NTDs also are recognized as a contributor to poverty since they can impair intellectual development in children, reduce school enrollment and hinder economic productivity by limiting the ability of infected individuals to work.
Fortunately, seven of the most prevalent NTDs can be targeted using a similar public health strategy developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) known as preventive chemotherapy. This strategy involves large-scale distribution of safe, effective medicines. Through multiple rounds of treatment to whole communities, known as mass drug administration or MDA, these disease can be controlled or eliminated. NTD programs are critical in creating a healthier, thriving, and more equitable world.
Learn More:
How to add a resource to the NTD Toolbox
Have a resource that you think would be a good addition to the NTD Toolbox? Great, we'd love to see it! Click here for information on how to submit a resource for consideration.