The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust has awarded a two-year emergency grant of $1.375 million to the END Fund to support visceral leishmaniasis (VL) programs coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in nine eastern African countries. The funding will address a critical gap, enabling WHO to procure essential diagnostic tests and first-line drugs for Ethiopia, as well as Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Sudan, and South Sudan, providing diagnostics for around 68,000 people and treatment for more than 32,000.
Visceral leishmaniasis is one of the deadliest neglected tropical diseases, with East Africa accounting for 73% of the global burden. Children under 15 make up over 65% of those affected. Transmitted by female sandflies, the disease is difficult to diagnose due to symptoms that mimic malnutrition and malaria. Without timely treatment, symptomatic VL has a fatality rate of up to 95%, but with treatment, survival exceeds 98%. Despite its high mortality and prevalence, the disease receives limited global attention and support.
The Helmsley grant ensures continuity of the program, preventing an estimated 20,000 deaths annually that could result if treatments were interrupted. Dr. Solomon Zewdu, CEO of the END Fund, highlighted the importance of the funding in enabling communities to detect, treat, and control the spread of VL, emphasizing that the grant complements pooled resources to ensure the program reaches all in need while advancing toward elimination.
WHO has expressed gratitude for the support, noting that the funding will enable procurement of diagnostic tests and medicines and support elimination activities in high-burden countries. All nine countries involved have signed a Memorandum of Understanding committing to the elimination of VL as a public health problem, reflecting strong political will to combat this fatal disease in disadvantaged rural populations.
This grant marks Helmsley Charitable Trust’s first direct investment in VL programming, building on its prior NTD initiatives, including a $6.3 million grant in 2024 to combat trachoma in Ethiopia. The END Fund began its VL programming in 2021 in response to cuts in foreign aid, leveraging a coalition of philanthropists, NGOs, Ministries of Health, and WHO to provide essential care, including early detection and life-saving treatments, and to strengthen systems for long-term disease elimination.
Walter Panzirer, Trustee of the Helmsley Charitable Trust, emphasized the urgency of continued support to prevent program interruptions and disease rebound. Implementation of the funding is already underway and will continue through mid-2027, complementing previous contributions from ELMA Philanthropies ($3 million) and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (over $9 million, with $900,000 matched by UBS Optimus Foundation via the END Fund).
The investment supports global and regional efforts to eliminate VL, a preventable and treatable disease, and reflects the END Fund’s broader mission to combat neglected tropical diseases. Since its founding in 2012, the END Fund has delivered over one billion treatments across 31 countries, conducted more than 43,000 surgeries to prevent blindness and disability, and trained nearly 3.5 million health workers to prevent and treat NTDs.
