London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases

The London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases is a collaborative disease eradication programme launched on 30 January 2012 in London. It was inspired by the World Health Organization 2020 roadmap to eradicate or negate transmission for neglected tropical diseases. Officials from WHO, the World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's 13 leading pharmaceutical companies, and government representatives from US, UK, United Arab Emirate, Bangladesh, Brazil, Mozambique and Tanzania participated in a joint meeting at the Royal College of Physicians to launch this project. The meeting was spearheaded by Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, and Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

This declaration is the largest coordinated effort to date in health issues and it aims to eliminate or control 10 neglected diseases by 2020 by providing more than US$785 million to support research and development. These diseases are most rampant in the economically deprived regions of the world and affect 1.4 billion people, and are responsible for the persistent backwardness in human development.

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