Dear Future President:

There needs to be increased research on neglected diseases. These diseases include Malaria, HIV, and Tuberculosis. Many diseases are going untreated and are affecting around 1.4 billion people worldwide. As the list of neglected diseases increase more people are becoming at risk. We need to have more funding for research so we will be able to have cures and more approved vaccinations.

The World Health Organization released a report in 2010 saying that Hookworm causes around 65,000 deaths per year, another 32 million are at risk of coming in contact with this disease. Hookworm caused 22.1 million people to adjust their lives due to disability caused by this disease. 1.8 million children under the age of 15 are living with HIV globally, everyday 300 of them die.

The vaccinations for many of these diseases are just way too expensive for some people to purchase. An estimated cost for a pharmaceutical company to get a development approved can fall anywhere between the amount of 500 million to 2 billion dollars. With these high costs many people can’t purchase the drug because a lot of these diseases affect more people who live in low and middle income countries. 130-150 million people are living with Hepatitis C and 85 percent of them live in low or middle- income countries.

There needs to be more drugs developed to treat neglected diseases. In between the years 2000 and 2011 only 4 percent of the drugs were made for neglected disease. These illnesses cause about 11 percent of the global disease burden.

More people need to become more aware and to know that these illnesses are out there. More people everyday become more at risk to get sick. London Centre for Neglected Tropical Disease Research stated “NTDs cause substantial illness in over one billion people.” If more people become aware then less people will be at risk of becoming sick. 350 million people are at risk worldwide to get Leishmaniasis, a disease that will enlarge the spleen and liver and leave disfiguring skin lesions. If it is not treated it can become fatal in months.

I ask for you to help make these medications more affordable so people from low to middle income can get the medicines they need. Also I ask of you to help promote awareness for these diseases.

Sincerely,

Hannah Serey