Task Force at 40: The Task Force in the 2000s

In the early 2000s, The Task Force boosted its neglected tropical diseases (NTD) expertise, adding three more programs, and became home to a global network of field epidemiology training programs.

The NTD portfolio included two new drug donation partnerships and a program focused on research. Joining in 2009, the International Trachoma Initiative, a partnership with Pfizer, aims to eliminate trachoma disease, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness. Pfizer donates medicine to prevent and treat the bacterial infection, which scars the interior of the eyelid and can turn it inward, so eyelashes scrape against the eye, causing painful ulcers and ultimately blindness if not treated.

By 2023, The Task Force trachoma team and partners had delivered 1 billion doses of Pfizer’s donated antibiotic, treating more than 300 million people in more than 40 countries. Eighteen countries had eliminated trachoma as a public health program and there’d been a 92 percent reduction in the number of people at risk of the disease (since 2002).

Meanwhile, in 2006, Johnson & Johnson partnered with The Task Force on a program called Children Without Worms, the first program focused exclusively on reducing infections from intestinal worms (soil-transmitted helminths) in school-age children around the world. In 2012, GSK joined the effort.  By 2024, 133 million doses of deworming treatment had been donated, with Task Force experts also providing operational research and technical assistance to country partners. 

In 2006, an NTD research-focused program moved from Emory University to The Task Force. This program, now known as the NTD Support Center, facilitates research on tools and techniques to control and eliminate NTDs, and provides a platform for researchers to share technical advances to maximize impact for countries.

IMPACT: Task Force NTD programs are driving significant progress against these diseases of poverty: worldwide, 25 percent fewer people required interventions for NTDs in 2021 compared to 2010 –  with several hundred million people no longer at risk of unnecessary disability, disfigurement, or death from these diseases. And 50 countries have eliminated at least one NTD.

A central aim in all Task Force programs is helping to build capacity in the countries where we work. As one example, starting in 2007, The Task Force worked with the Kenyan government for 13 years to build a database housing information for 100,000 healthcare workers. This African Health Workforce Project (2007-2020) enabled the Kenyan Ministry of Health to simplify the process for credentials and training, address nursing or doctor shortages, and track information to improve health services to Kenyans. The Task Force in 2020 transferred program oversight to the Kenyan government.

In 2008, the CDC tapped The Task Force to help countries around the world shore up their ability to detect and respond to disease outbreaks. The program, called TEPHINET (Training Programs in Epidemiology and Public Health Interventions Network), supports public health workers known as field epidemiologists, the “disease detectives” who investigate outbreaks. This program, connecting national Field Epidemiology Training Programs (FETPs) across more than 100 countries, promotes global health security by contributing to the global goal of having one trained field epidemiologist per 200,000 people. More than 20,000 FETP alumni have been trained on public health threats, who have investigated more than 14,000 outbreaks and contributed to nearly 9,000 disease surveillance systems.

In 2009, reflecting the growing breadth and depth of its portfolio, The Task Force again updated its name, becoming The Task Force for Global Health. In the subsequent decade the organization more than doubled in size, adding 10 new programs across its three focus areas: eliminating diseases, ensuring access to vaccines, and strengthening health systems.