Economic burden of a Neglected Tropical Disease in Africa: The case of Human Trypanosomasias

Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) are a category of diseases that cause severe infection to over one billion people worldwide. They impact the world’s poorest peo-ple, decrease the quality of life and productivity of em-ployees, hinder physical and cognitive growth, contribute to maternal and child disease and even death. Despite the risks, they are overshadowed by the efforts to fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, and considered to be “other diseases” that are not really catered for. Hence, this paper analyzed the economic burden of neglected tropical diseases in Africa from 2000 to 2018. Data used were Gross Domestic Product (GDP), human African trypanosomiasis reported cases, current health spending, net official development assistance, consumer price in-dex and exchange rate. The second-generation economet-ric methods were employed: cross sectional dependence, slope homogeneity, Westerlund cointegration, Pesaran and Smith MG, Pesaran CCEMG and Eberhardt and Teal AMG estimation. Findings confirm the following: first, cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity exist among African countries; second, there is a long run re-lationship between GDP and NTDs; third, NTDs im-pacted negatively and significantly GDP, therefore, they stand as a serious detriment to economic growth in Af-rica. The study suggested that governments in Africa should raise funds to eradicate NTDs and provide an im-provement of the environmental conditions that lead to their spread, such as clean water, enhanced sanitation in-itiatives and vector control.