• The World Health Assembly of the WHO has declared to officially observe ‘World Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) Day’ from now onwards on January 30 every year.
• This decision was unanimously agreed upon by the member states on May 28, 2021 during the 74th World Health Assembly, held from May 24th to June 1st 2021.
• The proposal to recognise the day was made by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
• The first World NTD Day was celebrated informally in 2020.
• In 2021, the new NTD road map for 2021–2030 was launched on January 28, 2021.

About World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day

• The World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day will commemorate the launch of the first NTD road map as well as the London Declaration on NTDs on 30 January 2012.
• On 30 January 2012, pharmaceutical companies, donors, endemic countries and non-government organisations came together to sign the London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases, forming the world’s biggest public–private sector partnership, to control, eliminate or eradicate ten NTD diseases by 2020.
• The World NTD Day will bring together a wide range of partners at global, national & local level to help accelerate the end of NTDs & the suffering associated with these devastating diseases.
• Some NTDs include snakebite envenomation, scabies, yaws, trachoma, Leishmaniasis and Chagas disease.