Health - $785 million to fight neglected tropical diseases

It is a bad time to be a parasitic worm or tsetse fly. An unprecedented $785 million is to be invested by governments of rich countries, pharmaceutical companies and global charities to try to combat tropical diseases affecting a billion of the world's poorest people.

The collaboration has pledged this week to provide 14 billion treatments over the next decade for 10 neglected tropical diseases, including sleeping sickness, spread by the tsetse fly, leprosy and a host of debilitating diseases caused by parasitic worms.

"This is the largest collaborative effort ever to attack an unacceptable infectious disease burden affecting the world's poor," says James Kazura, president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. "The timing could not be better since the tools to control neglected tropical diseases are in hand, or soon will be if critical research can be continued."

Backers of the collaboration, united by a new World Health Organization strategy, include 13 pharmaceutical companies, the governments of the US, UK and United Arab Emirates, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a host of global health organisations.

Michael Ferguson, who develops treatments for tropical diseases at the University of Dundee, UK, welcomed the announcement: "The world is now going in the right direction on this, whereas 10 years ago you felt no one was listening."

According to Ferguson, the past few years have seen a "sea change" in attitudes, with the growth of corporate responsibility, pressure from shareholders to help the poor and pledges by governments of long-term support for drug-development projects.

He adds that research is particularly needed to find better treatments for Chagas disease, which is presently incurable.

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