New modelling shows impact of COVID-19 pandemic on schistosomiasis programmes

24 Oct 2020

COVID-19 has put progress against schistosomiasis at risk. The pandemic's interruption of NTD programmmes could cause us to miss the WHO 2030 target to eliminate schistosomiasis.

The NTD Modelling Consortium has launched a report and inteactive tool describing results of mathematical modelling analyses which evaluate the impact of COVID-19-related delays or interruptions to neglected tropical diseases (NTD) programmes, and particularly on the achievement of NTD goals across 7 NTDs (soil-transmitted helminthiasis; schistosomiasis; lymphatic filariasis; onchocerciasis; trachoma; visceral leishmaniasis in the Indian sub-continent and Gambiense form of human African trypanosomiasis).

The findings in the report provide a quantitative framework to stakeholders who wish to understand the impact of interruption or delay of interventions on control and elimination timelines and remedial strategies that could be implemented to mitigate the delays.

The NTD modelling Consortium's interactive tool can be used to visually explore the impact of delayed MDA and mitigation "ctach up" strategies on reaching the WHO 2030 targets for NTDs: https://ntdmodelling.net/