Supporting countries endemic for mycetoma

In 2016, the Sixty‐ninth World Health Assembly adopted resolution WHA69.21 on addressing the burden of mycetoma. The resolution called on WHO to support countries to improve surveillance of the disease and promote research to develop better tools to diagnose and treat mycetoma. In response to this request, in 2017, WHO sent a questionnaire to all countries to collect baseline information on the occurrence of the disease globally. The results were published in 2017 in the Weekly Epidemiological Record , N° 33, 17 August 2018, pages 423–428.

In order to build national capacities in clinical and public-health aspects of mycetoma, the Government of Sudan and WHO organized the first international training workshop on mycetoma at the Mycetoma Research Centre of the University of Khartoum (WHO Collaborating Centre on Mycetoma) on 10–14 February 2019. The meeting was followed by the Sixth International Conference on Mycetoma (15–17 February) at which the “Khartoum Call for Action” was adopted.

Control strategy

As with other skin-NTDs, the main objective of control is to minimize the disability and socioeconomic impact of mycetoma on people and their families. The key components of the control strategy include:

• community awareness and early detection;
• training of health workers;
• access to diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation services; and
• surveillance.