‘Neglected tropical diseases’ cause tens of thousands of preventable deaths every single year in low-income populations in developing regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Our outstanding panel will give a diagnosis of the problem and outline their views as to the cure.

Dr Caroline Harper CBE is the CEO of Sightsavers, a charity that works in more than 30 countries across Africa and Asia to prevent blindness and to help the blind see again. It also improves the lives of people with disabilities, particularly those who have permanent sight loss. Last year Sightsavers examined over 12.8 million people and performed over 271,000 life changing operations.

Alan Fenwick OBE is Professor of Tropical Parasitology at Imperial College London. He founded the Schistosomiasis Control Iitiative (SCI), which by 2017 had reached the milestone of having assisted in the delivery of 140 million treatments against schistoisomiasis in Africa and the Middle East. Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease that leads to chronic ill-health and affects more than 200 million people in developing countries, 85% of them in sub-Saharan Africa.