In the villages and slum margins of Eastern Ethiopia, nearly one in four school-age children carries a neglected tropical disease — not because cures are unknown, but because poverty, contaminated water, and bare soil conspire to make prevention impossible for those who need it most. A study of over a thousand children conducted in early 2024 has given local shape to a global failure: the tools to eliminate these illnesses exist, yet the burden in certain regions has grown rather than receded. The findings ask a quiet but insistent question of the wider world — what does it mean to possess a r
Neglected tropical diseases affect nearly 1 in 4 children in rural Ethiopia
Approximately 237 school-age children in the study population carried neglected tropical diseases affecting their health and development.