Neglected diseases affect one billion people worldwide. To eliminate them, Korea has a crucial role to play

Some are lethal, like Chagas disease, which can lead to heart failure years after initial infection. Others, like cutaneous leishmaniasis, can be stigmatizing and lead to social exclusion because of the disfiguring scars they leave on the face. Some are exacerbated by climate change, such as dengue, for which half of the world’s population is at risk.
What NTDs have in common is that they affect the poorest communities, perpetuating a vicious cycle of poverty. I often remember a patient named Bimal, an Indian labourer living with HIV and visceral leishmaniasis. His illness has prevented him from working, keeping his family trapped in intergenerational poverty, as his 14-year-old son was forced to drop out of school to find a job and feed his parents and siblings.
Medicines against NTDs are often inadequate: they can be toxic, expensive, inaccessible, or not adapted to patients’ needs. Sometimes there are no treatments available at all. As NTDs affect predominantly impoverished people, there is no incentive for the commercially driven pharmaceutical research to develop better drugs.

And this is where South Korea can contribute: through medical innovation. Older readers might recall that decades ago, Korea struggled with numerous infectious and parasitic diseases, including malaria, tuberculosis and parasitic worms – some of them considered neglected. Not only did Korea succeed in eliminating them… but it is now in a position, thanks to its robust pharmaceutical industry and advanced research capabilities, to develop new medicines for neglected diseases.
A prime example of Korea’s commitment to combatting NTDs is the Research Investment for Global Health Technology (RIGHT) Foundation. Supported by Korean government and private sector, the organization fosters research to develop new treatments, diagnostics and vaccines for diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and several NTDs, aiming to make these products accessible by everyone who needs them.
To quote the prominent American scientist Peter Hotez, the RIGHT Foundation ‘can serve as a model for other Asian countries.’ Its approach is innovative and collaborative: the Foundation partners with international organizations, leveraging Korea’s technological and scientific expertise to tackle long-overlooked diseases.
For instance, the Foundation finances a collaboration between my organization and Kolon Life Science to produce affordable active ingredients, using innovative manufacturing processes, to supply treatments against onchocerciasis. Onchocerciasis is a parasitic disease that can cause severe itching and ultimately blindness. It is endemic in central and western Africa, affecting 19 million people.
Years ago, my organization also began a very fruitful collaboration with Institut Pasteur Korea, that is using an advanced technology called high-throughput screening to test millions of molecules against.