This book discusses the historical context, country experience, and best practices that led to eliminating infectious diseases from the WHO's South-East Asia Region, such as malaria, lymphatic filariasis, yaws, trachoma, and mother-to-child HIV in the mid-twentieth and twenty-first century. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (3.3) targets to end AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases by 2030. In this context, this book is of high significance to countries from the SEA region and around the globe. It helps create national strategies and action plans on infectious disease elimination and thus attaining SDG 3.3.

Autorentext
Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh was the first Indian elected Regional Director of WHO's South-East Asia Region. She was also the first woman in the region to assume the office of WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia in February 2014. In September 2018, she was unanimously elected for a second five-year term by the 71st Regional Committee and 144th Session of the WHO Executive Board. Prior to Dr. Khetrapal Singh's service as Regional Director of the WHO South-East Asia Region, for over two decades she was a civil servant in India as a member of the Indian Administrative Services (IAS). In 1987 she moved to the Health, Population and Nutrition Department of the World Bank and in 1998 she joined WHO headquarters, Geneva, as Executive Director, Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments Cluster, and became a member of the Director-General's Cabinet.
Dr. Khetrapal Singh has devoted more than three decades to strengthening public health as a leader and manager at national and international levels. Dr. Khetrapal Singh has vast experience in developing evidence-based, scientifically sound policy in complex state, national and international health systems due to her work in low resourced health systems, leading large multi-sectoral teams and collaborating with global partners and public health leaders. Dr Singh has a PhD in Public Health and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP), of the University of Edinburgh, UK.

Inhalt
1Introduction: A historic paradigm shift in communicable diseases in South-East Asia: from control to eliminationPoonam Khetrapal Singh2Thailand: Elimination of mother-to-child HIV transmissionRangsima Lolekha, Usa Thisyakorn, Mukta Sharma3Yaws: freeing young children in India from an old scourgeSujeet Singh, S.K. Jain, Mohamed A. Jamsheed4Maldives: a long battle to banish malariaMohamed Hameed, Hussain Habeeb, Zakiyya Hassan, Maimoona Aboobakuru, Arvind Mathur5Unburdening the poor: elimination of lymphatic filariasis in MaldivesHassan Samir, Nishan Mohamed, Sana Saleem, Tjandra Yoga Aditama6Sri Lanka: long battle to eliminate malariaKamini Mendis, Risintha Gayan Premaratne7Lymphatic filariasis elimination in Sri Lanka: overcoming the oddsSandhya Dilhani Samarasekera, Razia Pendse8Elimination of lymphatic filariasis in Thailand: a model for best practicesSuwich Thammapalo, Daniel Kertesz9Trachoma elimination in Nepal: bringing light, preventing darknessMahendra Shrestha, Sailesh Kumar Mishra, Jos Vandelaer 10South-East Asia Region marches ahead on elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis: Sri Lanka becomes the third country in the SE Asia Region to be validatedLilani Rajapaksa, K A M Ariyaratne, BB Rewari11Leveraging health system gains towards eliminating mother-to-child transmission (EMTCT) of HIV and syphilis: How Maldives became the second country in WHO South-East Asia Region to achieve this featIbrahim Nishan Mohamed, Abdul Hameed, Abdulla Muaaz Adam, Shushil Dev Pant12Leprosy: accelerating towards a leprosy-free worldAuthors: Vijaykumar Pannikar, Cita Rosita Sigit Prakoeswa, Erwin Ame Willy D. Cooreman