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Lymphatic Filariasis elimination and the Millennium Development Goals |
| Goal 1 |
| • Eliminate extreme poverty and hunger |
| • LF is a disease of poor people in poor countries, particularly in individuals earning below $1/day. LF elimination reduces health care costs and increases productivity |
| • Reduces prevalence of underweight children by improving nutritional status, micronutrient uptake enhanced through albendazole and by improvement of agricultural productivity and improving household/community food security |
| Goal 2 |
| • Achieve universal primary education |
| • LF elimination will increase capacity of poor families to access education through increased income, reduced caring for afflicted parents, increased school attendance and performance via drug treatment impact on intestinal helminths |
| • Schools can act as an entry point for drug distribution, increasing both coverage and parental awareness of the benefits |
| Goal 3 |
| • Promote gender equity and empowerment |
| • Women play a role as drug distributors enhancing respect and empowerment |
| • Women's marital prospects enhanced as LF control reduces stigma of disease |
| Goal 4 and Goal 5 |
| • Reduce child mortality and reduce maternal mortality |
| • Women's health status improves as albendazole alleviates hookworm anaemia |
| • Anaemia → better birth outcomes → reduced prevalence of low birth weight babies hence reduced maternal and infant mortality |
| Goal 6 |
| • Combat HIV/AIDS/malaria and other diseases |
| • LF and malaria control interlinked by bednets, alleviation of anaemia by albendazole; drug distribution can enhance bednet coverage and re-impregnation rates |
| • Albendazole impacts on child and maternal mortality via alleviation of anaemia burden |
| Goal 7 and Goal 8 |
| • Ensure environmental sustainability |
| • Develop a Global partnership for Development |
| • GAELF and GPELF are an effective diverse global partnership committed to elimination of a disease of poverty by 2020. |
| • Elimination has been achieved in several countries bringing development benefits to poor communities |
Molyneux Filaria Journal 2003 2:13 doi:10.1186/1475-2883-2-13 |