The United States and Mexico: Addressing a Shared Legacy of Neglected Tropical Diseases and Poverty

Abstract

On September 29–30, 2015, Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, and the END Fund collaborated on a high-level summit to address the neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and related diseases of poverty shared between the United States and Mexico. More than 150 local doctors, scientists, students, and community leaders attended the event, which examined the causes and implications of NTDs in the United States and Mexico, advances in research and development to fight NTDs, and effective public policy efforts for NTD elimination. Presenters included Mitchell Wolfe, deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Global Health, Mercedes Juan Lopez, Mexico’s secretary of health, and Roberto Tapia-Conyer, director general of the Carlos Slim Foundation. This report reviews the impact and prevalence of NTDs in the United States and Mexico. This report also will address key policy challenges and make recommendations for reducing NTDs in these two countries. Reducing the multifaceted impact of NTDS will require coordinated policies between these two countries that focus on preventive measures and access to therapies as well as the development of new treatments and vaccines.