The World Health Organization (WHO) based Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) has adopted a new strategy for strengthening and expanding research to prevent and control 'infectious diseases of poverty.'
The strategy builds on the programme’s 30-year record of developing new drugs, delivery strategies and enhancing research capacity in countries where parasitic tropical diseases are endemic. The new plan addresses some of the emerging disease challenges facing developing countries, such as TB-HIV co-infection.Over the coming decade, TDR will focus on addressing key bottlenecks in getting health care treatments to poor and remote populations, and fostering research and policy leadership in countries where these diseases create significant health problems.
The Board on Thursday approved the new ten-year strategy and vision. The Board includes the four TDR cosponsors - UNDP, UNICEF, the World Bank and WHO - as well as 30 representatives of governments of developed and developing countries.
The vision calls on TDR, one of the major UN-based programmes dedicated to health research in the developing world, to "foster an effective global research effort on infectious disease of poverty in which disease endemic countries play a pivotal role."
Source-ANI
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