Early this fall, I wrote a post about END7, a global advocacy campaign run by the Global Network to raise awareness of the seven most common Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and cultivate the resources necessary to eliminate them as public health threats by 2020.

The Road to deliver treatment for NTDs in rural Kenya. Photo credit: Mo Scarpelli

I had honestly never heard of NTDs before even with all my international traveling. However, NTDs keep millions of children in the developing world out of school from preventable, treatable diseases further reinforcing the cycle of poverty and despair. Per END7, there are seven NTDs (Elephantiasis, river blindness, trachoma, snail fever, hookworm, whipworm and roundworm) that are responsible for 90% of the global burden of NTDs. NTDs are a huge problem: It is estimated that NTDs infect one in six people worldwide including one billion children.