Today, as we join in celebrating International Women’s Day, we’re reading the WHO’s comments on this day as well as reviewing a paper Dr. Peter Hotez wrote about womens health and NTDs. We’re also reading a profile of river blindness and about Buruli ulcer, one of the less discussed NTDs.
Equal rights, equal opportunities: progress for all, World Health Organization
WHO laments “shameful” lack of respect for women’s right to good health, World Health Organization
Empowering Women and Improving Female Reproductive Health through Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases, Peter Hotez, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
Blind to the river and its hazards, Stanley M. Aronson, The Providence Journal
Buruli ulcer: an overlooked tropical disease, Robert Herriman, Examiner.com
The serious effects of schistosomiasis can be controlled by regular treatment of early infections with the drug 
A single exposure to trachoma bacterium does not in itself cause blindness. Repeated exposure to the disease — through person-to-person contact or infected flies — over time eventually causes the inside of the eyelid to turn inward — a condition called trichiasis — and the eyelashes to scrape and scar the cornea, leading to the formation of corneal opacities and painful and irreversible blindness. Trachoma is particularly common in children under five and the adults – mainly women – who care for them. In some rural communities, 60 – 90 percent of children are infected. Adult women are three times more likely to develop the blindness associated with trachoma, attributed in part to their caretaking of very young children.
