Human helminthiases are of considerable public
health importance in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin
America. The acknowledgement of the disease burden due
to helminth infections, the availability of donated or
affordable drugs that are mostly safe and moderately
efficacious, and the implementation of viable mass drug
administration (MDA) interventions have prompted the
establishment of various large-scale control and elimination
programmes. These programmes have benefited from
improved epidemiological mapping of the infections, better
understanding of the scope and limitations of currently
available diagnostics and of the relationship between
infection and morbidity, feasibility of community-directed
or school-based interventions, and advances in the design of
monitoring and evaluation (M&E) protocols. Considerable
success has been achieved in reducing morbidity or
suppressing transmission in a number of settings, whilst
challenges remain in many others. Some of the obstacles
include the lack of diagnostic tools appropriate to the
changing requirements of ongoing interventions and
elimination settings; the reliance on a handful of drugs
about which not enough is known regarding modes of
action, modes of resistance, and optimal dosage singly or in
combination; the difficulties in sustaining adequate coverage
and compliance in prolonged and/or integrated programmes;
an incomplete understanding of the social,
behavioural, and environmental determinants of infection;
and last, but not least, very little investment in research and
development (R&D). The Disease Reference Group on
Helminth Infections (DRG4), established in 2009 by the
Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical
Diseases (TDR), was given the mandate to undertake a
comprehensive review of recent advances in helminthiases
research, identify research gaps, and rank priorities for an
R&D agenda for the control and elimination of these
infections. This review presents the processes undertaken
to identify and rank ten top research priorities; discusses the
implications of realising these priorities in terms of their
potential for improving global health and achieving the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); outlines salient
research funding needs; and introduces the series of reviews
that follow in this PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases collection,
‘‘A Research Agenda for Helminth Diseases of Humans"