Specialists from George Washington University and Sabin Vaccine Institute proposed that US $1.00 airline or cruise ship tax or a tax on tourist entry could provide a funding mechanism for the Caribbean countries to control these NTDs.

NTDs are neglected tropical diseases. Caribbean counties such as Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Haiti, and Jamaica face the problem of NTDs very hard. For example, out of a population of 8.1 million people, Haiti is estimated to have 3.8 million cases of whipworm (trichuriasis), almost 800,000 cases of hookworm, and 560,000 cases of the parasitic disease lymphatic filariasis, which can cause elephantiasis.

Almost 22 million visitors come to the Caribbean every year and they spend about $21.6 billion. But despite such an enormous amount of money is infused into the Caribbean economy every year, very little if any go to poor people dying from tropical diseases. Note, that all these tropical diseases were introduced into the Caribbean through the Atlantic slave trade. Nowadays, developed countries have successfully won those infections, and they still occur almost exclusively among people living in poverty or people of African descent.

Professor Hotez says it is tragic that the impact of these NTDs is so enormous, if it is so cheap to control them.

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