Neglected diseases are a group of tropical infections that are either extremely rare or occur in areas of extreme poverty. Because of these characteristics, they offer no strategic interest to commercial pharmaceutical industry.

According to WHO over 1 billion people suffer from a neglected tropical disease. Therefore, neglected diseases cause a global burden compared to that caused by HIV/AIDS, TB or malaria. 

In line with its mission, IDA Foundation has contributed to making available some of the orphan medicines, i.e.:
• Ceftriaxon (for the treatment of meningococcal meningitis)
• Diethylcarbamazine (for the treatment of eosinophilia and river blindness)
• Sodium stibogluconate (for the treatment of kala azar)

Whenever possible, IDA Foundation works actively to improve the availability of medicines for neglected diseases.

Another example of our work in Neglected diseases is our de-worming project with RTI International (http://www.rti.org). In 2008-2009, IDA Foundation supplied over 28 million de-worming treatments to RTI projects worldwide.