A documentary from the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) reports on progress in developing cures for the 20 neglected tropical diseases. These diseases, also called “forgotten,” affect more than a billion people in the world, according to the WHO, but go unnoticed by donors and are also banned by the scientific community and the pharmaceutical industry. The explanation is that they affect poor people in countries without resources. Doctors Without Borders confronted this forgetfulness and decided to allocate part of the funds from the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize to support research into medicines to prevent, treat and cure these diseases.
Two decades after its founding, the DNDi has compiled in the documentary “Out of the Shadows” several achievements of its scientific community, which has developed new treatments without profit for deadly diseases such as sleeping sickness, the drugs used to combat it killed one in every 20 patients. EL PAÍS publishes the recording a day before the presentation of the “Princess of Asturias” prize to this organization this Friday in Oviedo.
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