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BRICS in the response to neglected tropical diseases.

Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa--the countries known as BRICS--are transitioning from emerging economies to leaders in geopolitical affairs. While BRICS face increasing prevalence of noncommunicable disease and injury, they also continue to be burdened by many infectious diseases, including neglected tropical diseases. Neglected tropical diseases are endemic in all of the BRICS countries except the Russian Federation. Lymphatic filariasis is endemic in Brazil and India, soil-transmitted helminths are endemic in Brazil, China, India and South Africa, trachoma is endemic in Brazil, China and India, schistosomiasis exists in Brazil and China and onchocerciasis persists in parts of Brazil. BRICS account for more than 30% of the world's children at risk of infection with soil-transmitted helminths. (1) India alone accounts for nearly half of the world's population at risk of lymphatic filariasis. (2-3) The morbidity and disability caused by neglected tropical diseases such as lymphoedema caused by filarial infection or blindness caused by trachoma --perpetuate poverty and inequality. (4) Since these diseases prevent children from attending school and parents from working, they also decrease education, worker productivity and overall wealth. The five BRICS countries are uniquely positioned--as a group and as individual countries--to ensure that neglected tropical diseases receive the international attention they deserve. Each of these countries is increasing its role in international cooperation. It has been estimated that BRICS provided 5.6 billion United States dollars in foreign assistance in 2010.5 As BRICS launch a new development bank and institutionalize dialogue between their heads of state, they will expand their influence from the regional stage to the global stage and strengthen their role as drivers of innovative cooperation. (5) By demonstrating leadership and addressing their domestic disease burdens, Brazil, China, India and South Africa can make a substantial contribution to reducing the global burden of neglected tropical diseases. By building on their individual and collective mechanisms for shaping policy and promoting cooperation, all five of the BRICS countries can enhance the global response to neglected tropical diseases and help other countries to scale up their neglected tropical disease programmes--to reach the remaining 1.4 billion people worldwide who are at risk of developing one or more of these debilitating diseases of poverty. (4) Global progress Since the World Health Organization (WHO) released its neglected tropical disease roadmap in 2010, the World Bank, major pharmaceutical companies, bilateral aid agencies, endemic countries and other public and private sector organizations have increased their support for the global neglected tropical disease response. In January 2012--in the London declaration on neglected tropical diseases --these partners pledged to increase drug donations, research and development and bilateral efforts in support of the goals set by WHO. The goals are to control or eliminate guinea worm, leprosy, lymphatic filariasis, trachoma and sleeping sickness and to control schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis, soil-transmitted helminths, Chagas disease and visceral leishmaniasis by 2020. The growing momentum to address these diseases was further demonstrated by the Sixty-sixth World Health Assembly's adoption of a resolution that urged Member States to increase their ownership of--and financing for--neglected tropical disease programmes. Although more than 70 endemic countries have now developed national plans to control and eliminate neglected tropical diseases and more than 700 million preventive treatments are being delivered annually, these activities are still reaching less than 40% of the global population at risk. (4) BRICS' engagement Leading by example In recent years, the four BRICS countries where neglected tropical diseases are endemic have made great strides in controlling and eliminating such diseases within their borders--by scaling up and sustaining their national neglected tropical disease programmes. …