Reducing Typhoid Burden within a Generation

For us, the authors of this viewpoint, our respective journeys related to typhoid fever span almost three decades, from an early exposure to the severe morbidity associated with drug-resistant typhoid to assessment of priorities for dealing with the burden of a neglected disorder. Despite the fact that there have been numerous, mostly modeled, global estimates of the burden of typhoid over the past several decades, progress in addressing this illness has been woefully slow. This is partly a result of limited nationally representative estimates from low- and middle-income countries and general misperceptions that typhoid is largely preventable through socioeconomic development and gains in environmental conditions, such as sanitation and safe water, and that secular trends suggest that the disease burden is decreasing.