Support for eliminating neglected infectious diseases
The END Fund and PAHO are partners in strengthening Guyana's actions to eliminate lymphatic filariasis by 2026
The END Fund, a private philanthropic initiative, works to eliminate the most common neglected infectious diseases in the world by 2030. To achieve that goal, it not only offers treatment to those who need it but also collaborates with other organizations working to eliminate those diseases. The alliance between The END Fund and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is focused on supporting Guyana in eliminating lymphatic filariasis.
Founded in 2012, the END Fund has raised over $118 million to treat more than 140 million people around the world who are affected by neglected infectious diseases. The fund has also trained more than 900,000 healthcare workers and provided 10,000 surgeries to people with trachoma and lymphatic filariasis.
In 2006, the Legatum Foundation, a founding investor in The END Fund, helped finance programs to eliminate neglected infectious diseases in Rwanda and Burundi. In four years, the programs treated more than 8 million people for diseases such as soil-transmitted helminths (roundworms), schistosomiasis and lymphatic filariasis. The low-cost interventions demonstrated the feasibility of rapidly expanding programs nationwide to treat these diseases and prompted the creation of The END Fund as a philanthropic platform to engage other partners in eliminating this type of disease.
The END Fund works with governments, non-governmental organizations, pharmaceutical partners, and academics to manage high-impact strategic investments that seek to improve health systems and services that serve affected communities and help to eliminate these diseases.
Strengthening Guyana's program to eliminate lymphatic filariasis by 2026
In 2018, The END Fund and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) partnered with PAHO's Regional Program for Neglected Infectious Diseases to strengthen programs aimed at eliminating lymphatic filariasis as a public health problem in Guyana. The alliance seeks to generate capacity and formulate a national plan to eliminate the disease, survey the epidemiological situation in high-risk areas of the country, implement a strategy for the massive administration of drugs with triple therapy (called IDA—Ivermectin, Diethylcarbamazine and Albendazole), and verify and document the impact of these strategies.
Since 2019, The END Fund has contributed $ 1.2 million to PAHO to implement this plan and to cover additional costs generated by limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic for the massive administration of treatment.
Lymphatic filariasis is a mosquito-borne parasitic disease that puts the health of around 500,000 people in Guyana at risk. Although not fatal, the disease affects the lymphatic system and leads to permanent and debilitating symptoms that can cause physical disability and mental health disorders.
Guyana, with technical assistance from PAHO and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and financing from USAID and The END Fund, has committed to eliminate lymphatic filariasis.
Because of its determination to achieve effective solutions, as well as its ability to convene and work with different stakeholders to achieve this goal, The ENF Fund is a key partner for PAHO in its work to eliminate neglected infectious diseases in the Americas.
More information
— The End - Reaching the last mile fund
— USAID
— PAHO- Dancing shoes and the path towards the elimination of lymphatic filariasis in Guyana
— PAHO: Guyana overcomes pandemic challenges to advance in the elimination of lymphatic filariasis