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The World Health Organization on Wednesday celebrated "major progress" against neglected tropical diseases, with some like sleeping sickness all but disappearing, but urged more investment and faster and broader action.
NTDs are a diverse group of conditions found mainly in poorer tropical regions, such as dengue, leprosy and rabies, which are largely overlooked.
But in a new report, the WHO hailed that a growing number of countries had eliminated at least one NTD, while the number of people requiring treatment for such diseases had fallen by more than a third between 2010 and 2024, to 1.41 billion.
Cases of sleeping sickness had dropped by 98 percent since 1999, while Guinea worm disease fell to a record low of just 10 human cases last year, the report pointed out.
"Elimination of neglected tropical diseases is one of the standout success stories of global health," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
But he struck a note of caution, warning that "the hard-won gains we have made could easily be lost".
The UN health agency highlighted that scientific advances had provided new tools to prevent and treat NTDs, including a vaccine for dengue.
Even so, dengue cases reached a record 15.1 million in 2024, while deaths from vector-borne NTDs generally have risen, the study showed.
International development assistance for fighting NTDs meanwhile remains highly concentrated, with a small number of donors accounting for nearly 80 percent of all aid between 2018 and 2024.
This has left the area particularly vulnerable to the dramatic cuts to global aid since last year, WHO said, pointing out that the resources available remain 30 percent below levels prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Countries and partners must step up, not step back," Tedros said urging increased domestic financing and the integration of NTD services into primary health care.
WHO also urged donors to broaden their support and recipient countries to "diversify their funding sources".
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