“Lorenzo Savioli, director of WHO’s department of neglected tropical diseases, spoke to Devex from Geneva in a phone interview on Wednesday, January 23, days after WHO released a progress report on its year-old roadmap to eliminate 17 tropical diseases,” Devex’s “Development Newswire” blog reports. “The conversation highlighted some of the main front lines in the fight against neglected diseases: increasing support from the Global South and the pharmaceutical sector, funding fatigue by cash-strapped Western governments, and the challenges posed by political turmoil and other crises,” the blog notes before summarizing the conversation, which focused primarily on the eradication of Guinea worm and yaws (Lieberman, 1/24).