Foreign Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/
25 March 2013

The Disease Next Door—Peter Hotez
Extract 
They’re probably the most important diseases you’ve never heard of — causing everything from gruesome limb disfigurement and skin sores to bladder and liver cancers to neurological damage — and they’re practically ubiquitous among world’s poorest people. Typically, such infections last for years or even decades, causing chronic and permanent disabilities such as stunted growth and intellectual developments in children; blindness, heart disease, and disfigurement of adults; and pregnancy complications that can result in severe disease in both newborns and their mothers. In so doing, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) have been shown to actually cause poverty and even destabilize communities, leading to conflict…