03251nas a2200457   4500000000100000008004100001260002200042653004900064653005700113653003900170653001400209653002300223653001300246653002200259653003200281653002700313100001400340700001400354700001600368700001400384700001400398700001200412700001200424700001400436700001300450700001300463700001000476700001300486700001700499700001500516700001300531700001600544700001100560700001400571245019500585856007100780300000900851490000800860520190000868022002502768       2023                            d  bThe Royal Society10aGeneral Agricultural and Biological Sciences10aGeneral Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology10aNeglected tropical diseases (NTDs)10aDeworming10aLondon Declaration10aCovid-1910apandemic recovery10aschool-based NTD programmes10aSchool Meals Coalition1 aBundy DAP1 aSchultz L1 aAntoninis M1 aBarry FBM1 aBurbano C1 aCroke K1 aDrake L1 aGyapong J1 aKarutu C1 aKihara J1 aLo MM1 aMakkar P1 aMwandawiro C1 aOssipow SJ1 aBento AR1 aRollinson D1 aShah H1 aTurner HC00aA positive consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic: how the counterfactual experience of school closures is accelerating a multisectoral response to the treatment of neglected tropical diseases  uhttps://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.1098/rstb.2022.0282  a1-130 v3783 a<p>Global access to deworming treatment is one of the public health success stories of low-income countries in the twenty-first century. Parasitic worm infections are among the most ubiquitous chronic infections of humans, and early success with mass treatment programmes for these infections was the key catalyst for the neglected tropical disease (NTD) agenda. Since the launch of the ‘London Declaration’ in 2012, school-based deworming programmes have become the world's largest public health interventions. WHO estimates that by 2020, some 3.3 billion school-based drug treatments had been delivered. The success of this approach was brought to a dramatic halt in April 2020 when schools were closed worldwide in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These closures immediately excluded 1.5 billion children not only from access to education but also from all school-based health services, including deworming. WHO Pulse surveys in 2021 identified NTD treatment as among the most negatively affected health interventions worldwide, second only to mental health interventions. In reaction, governments created a global Coalition with the twin aims of reopening schools and of rebuilding more resilient school-based health systems. Today, some 86 countries, comprising more than half the world's population, are delivering on this response, and school-based coverage of some key school-based programmes exceeds those from January 2020. This paper explores how science, and a combination of new policy and epidemiological perspectives that began in the 1980s, led to the exceptional growth in school-based NTD programmes after 2012, and are again driving new momentum in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>

<p>This article is part of the theme issue ‘Challenges and opportunities in the fight against neglected tropical diseases: a decade from the London Declaration on NTDs’.</p>
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