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Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and related infections in hematopoietic cellular therapy (HCT) in adults and children: a survey from the Infectious Diseases Working Party (IDWP) of the European Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT)

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 61, pages 219–221 (2026)Cite this article

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Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a diverse group of conditions (see footnote) defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) [1] that are mainly prevalent in tropical areas, where they mostly affect impoverished communities and disproportionately affect women and children. These diseases cause devastating health, social, and economic consequences. According to the WHO website, NTDs “affect more than 1 billion people, while the number of people requiring NTD interventions (both preventive and curative) is 1.495 billion”. The epidemiology of NTDs is complex and often related to environmental conditions. Many of them are vector-borne, have animal reservoirs, and are associated with complex life cycles. All these factors make their wider public-health control challenging in endemic countries.

Our understanding of the NTDs in the setting of hematopoietic cellular therapy (HCT) in adults and children is limited. In addition, there are other commoner endemic or regionally limited diseases that are not in the current WHO NTDs list, but similar consideration is supported by recent publications [2,3,4,5,6,7]. Although transplant activity is not high in many Low- or Middle-Income Countries (LMIC) and tropical countries, we increasingly live in a world of travellers and displaced people who may have undergone or require HCT and chimeric antigen receptor T-cells therapy (CAR-T), and there will be a unique range of issues pre -, peri- and post-transplant in imported NTDs. Moreover, there is an increasing impact of climate change in changing the endemicity of some diseases.

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Notes

  1. As of December 2023; NTDs include: Buruli ulcer; Chagas disease; dengue and chikungunya; dracunculiasis; echinococcosis; foodborne trematodiases; human African trypanosomiasis; leishmaniasis; leprosy; lymphatic filariasis; mycetoma, chromoblastomycosis and other deep mycoses; noma; onchocerciasis; rabies; scabies and other ectoparasitoses; schistosomiasis; soil-transmitted helminthiases; snakebite envenoming; taeniasis/cysticercosis; trachoma; and yaws. We excluded ectoparasitoses and snakebite envenoming and podoconiosis, and later mycetoma (based on confusion with ‘typical’ fungal infections in some centres).

  2. Other infections (non-NTDs) included malaria (any species), brucellosis, leptospirosis, Burkholderia species-associated disease (excluding Burkholderia cepacia),Strongyloidiasis, Yellow fever, Zika virus and HTLV-1 infections.

References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Haematology, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Sheffield, UK

    John A. Snowden

  2. Division of Clinical Medicine, School of Medicine and Population Health, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    John A. Snowden

  3. Department of Infection and Tropical Medicine, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Sheffield, UK

    Vivak Parkash & Thushan de Silva

  4. Leiden Study Unit, EBMT, Leiden, the Netherlands

    Nina Knelange

  5. Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, Jurasz University Hospital; Collegium Medicum, Bydgoszcz, Poland

    Jan Styczynski

  6. Nicolaus Copernicus University Torun, Bydgoszcz, Poland

    Jan Styczynski

  7. EBMT Statistical Committee, Verona, Italy

    Gloria Tridello

  8. Worldwide Network for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (WBMT), UPENN, Philadelphia, USA

    Dietger Niederwieser

  9. Worldwide Network for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (WBMT), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    Mahmoud Aljurf

  10. Clinical Hematology Department, Institut Català d’Oncologia—L’Hospitalet, IDIBELL, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Anna Sureda

  11. University of Genova, Department of Health Sciences, Genoa, Italy

    Malgorzata Mikulska

  12. Infectious Diseases Unit, IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino, Genoa, Italy

    Malgorzata Mikulska

  13. Hematology Department, Hospital de la Princesa, Madrid, Spain

    Rafael de la Camara

  14. Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Dina Averbuch

  15. Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel

    Dina Averbuch

Authors
  1. John A. Snowden
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Contributions

JAS, VP, TDS, NK (Data Coordinator to IDWP), DA and RC (Chairs of the IDWP) and JS and MM (Secretaries of the IDWP) led on designing the study protocol, with statistical support from GT and active strategic input from AS (EBMT) and DN and MA (WBMT). NK coordinated distribution of the survey from the EBMT Leiden Office and collated results. All authors reviewed and interpreted the data, contributed to draft versions of the manuscript and approved the final version of manuscript. The study was approved by the IDWP, conducted according to EBMT policies and procedures and all authors agree to be accountable.

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Correspondence to John A. Snowden.

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Snowden, J.A., Parkash, V., Knelange, N. et al. Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and related infections in hematopoietic cellular therapy (HCT) in adults and children: a survey from the Infectious Diseases Working Party (IDWP) of the European Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT). Bone Marrow Transplant 61, 219–221 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41409-025-02767-z

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