An analysis published June 25th in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases highlights that diseases very similar to those plaguing Africa, Asia, and Latin America are also occurring frequently among the poorest people in the United States, especially women and children.

An international team of tropical disease control experts has urged the global health and development community, and particularly the G8 leaders, to establish a new financing mechanism to combat the neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) of poverty.

An international team of 17 researchers from four countries has for the first time isolated from the environment and fully characterized the organism that causes Buruli ulcer.

The neglected tropical diseases are a group of 13 infectious diseases, including elephantiasis, hookworm, African sleeping sickness and trachoma, which affect more than 1 billion people worldwide, most of whom live in extreme poverty.