Today the World Health Organisation, Geneva launched its 10-year NTD Roadmap which has a major focus on skin NTDs. Over 50% of NTDs relate to the skin and are often associated with stigmatisation, mental health issues and long-term disability.
Globally, skin diseases are the third most prevalent cause of illness and one of the top 10 causes of disability and fungal skin infection is top of the list. They are also among the 10 most common causes of outpatient visits.
The new NTD Roadmap is aligned with GAFFI’s updated vision: “A world free of fungal disease.” Skin NTDs include mycetoma, chromoblastomycosis, sporotrichosis and other common skin infections such as tinea capitis in children.
GAFFI successfully argued that chromoblastomycosis should be added to the WHO NTD list in 2017, along with sporotrichosis. Action is now required to improve diagnostic capability including clinical awareness, histopathology, direct microscopy and fungal culture. Both chromoblastomycosis and sporotrichosis respond well to itraconazole, but it is either not available or unaffordable in many countries.
GAFFI supported the publication in 2020 of up-to-date maps of mycetoma which identified many more countries with cases than had been previously documented.
https://gaffi.org/3rd-essential-diagnostics-list-launch/