Evaluation of Interventions and Diagnostics of Neglected Tropical Diseases in sub-Saharan Africa

大多数被忽视的热带病（NTDs）在工业化国家几乎不为人所知，但它们在世界上最贫穷的国家造成了严重的残疾，使生产力减少了数十亿美元。世界卫生组织（WHO）和美国疾病控制和预防中心（CDC）最近都将这些疾病确定为改善全球健康的“机会目标”。通过向个人提供安全有效的药物治疗，大规模给药可以控制7个被忽视的热带病。本研究旨在：1)评估基于mda的不同干预措施对血吸虫病和沙眼这两种被忽视热带病的感染流行程度和强度的影响及其消除的可能性；ii)评估目前用于监测和评估针对这两种被忽视热带病的干预措施的诊断工具的性能。对相关数据进行强有力的统计分析，将有助于优化未来非传染性疾病控制规划的设计，并评估当前战略的影响，从而使世界上一些最贫穷社区的生活质量得以提高。这项研究的结果将对英国流行的传染病产生影响，比如生殖道衣原体，这在一定程度上导致了育龄妇女不孕。

Most of the Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) have little name-recognition in industrialized nations, but together they cause severe disability in the world‘s poorest countries, decreasing productivity by billions of dollars. Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have recently identified these diseases as ‘targets of opportunity‘ to improve global health. By providing safe and effective drug treatments to individuals, mass drug administration (MDA) can control seven NTDs.The proposed research aims to: i) evaluate the effect of different MDA-based interventions on the infection prevalence and intensity of two NTDs: schistosomiasis and trachoma, and on the likelihood of their elimination; and ii) evaluate the performance of the diagnostic tools currently used for Monitoring & Evaluation of interventions against these two NTDs. Robust statistical analysis of relevant data will help to optimize the design of future NTD control programmes, and evaluate the impact of current strategies so that a better quality of life for some of the world‘s poorest communities can be achieved. The results of this research will have implications for infections prevalent in the UK, such as genital Chlamydia, partly responsible for infertility in reproductive age women.