Parasites and priorities: the early evolution of 'neglected disease' initiatives and the history of a global health agenda.

This article explores the development and evolution of 'neglected tropical diseases' (NTDs) as an operative and imaginative category in global public health, focusing on the early intellectual and institutional development of the category in the 1970s. It examines early work around 'neglected' diseases in the Rockefeller Foundation's Health Sciences Division, specifically the Foundation's 'Great Neglected Diseases of Mankind' initiative that ran between 1978 and 1988, as well as intersections with the WHO's parallel Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases and efforts by the US-based Edna McConnell Clark and MacArthur Foundations. A key concern of advocates who influenced initial programmes focused around 'neglect' was a lack of sophistication in medical parasitological research globally.