‘Your Majesties, The Emperor and Empress,  

Your Excellency, Mr Shigeru Ishiba, Prime Minister of Japan,  

Your Excellency, Mr João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, President of the Republic of Angola,  

Dr Abdoulaye Djimdé,  

Dr Osamu Kunii, 

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, 

We call them diseases of the poor. You may have never heard some of their names – like leishmaniasis, or mycetoma – but they impact more than 1 billion people around the world.  

They cause pain, disability, stigma, and death. They ruin families. They force children to leave school. 

These are the diseases Dr Hideyo Noguchi devoted his life to. 

By tirelessly working to find medicines for ravaging infectious diseases – even losing his life in the process – Dr Hideyo Noguchi set a stellar example that we humbly want to follow and celebrate.   

In my own career leading medical projects in Africa, I often thought of Dr Noguchi’s contributions and sacrifice. 

Almost one hundred years after his death, many of these diseases are still neglected.  

DNDi, the organization I work for, was created to develop new medicines for neglected patients. Because too often, the only available medicines are toxic, expensive, and difficult to administer. Sometimes medicines don’t exist at all. 

This mission strongly resonates with the lifework of Dr Noguchi, and his drive to always put patients first. 

Patients like Béni, a young boy from the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

A few months ago, Béni was bitten by a tsetse fly and infected with a disease called sleeping sickness. The disease can affect the brain and cause patients to fall asleep during the day or become aggressive. Without treatment, it is usually fatal. Béni began to struggle in school, getting into fights with his friends. Eventually, he had to drop out. 

A few weeks ago, Béni was treated – and cured – thanks to a new safe and effective oral medicine. 

This new medicine is one of the 13 new treatments that DNDi has developed – for diseases like malaria, leishmaniasis, and hepatitis C.  

Millions of lives have been saved.   

I’m here today to receive the Hideyo Noguchi Africa prize with my colleague Dr Wilfried Mutombo, a researcher from the DRC who worked on the trials that made these new medicines a reality.  

But these successes are not ours alone. Committed partners – including the governments of endemic countries, international funders, pharmaceutical companies, and university scientists – joined us in our efforts. Some of them are in the room today. 

Many of our partners are Japanese. We work with Japanese universities and pharmaceutical companies. The government of Japan has shown outstanding leadership in supporting research for neglected diseases.  

Working together, our success is a demonstration of the power of science to deliver real solutions for communities usually excluded from the fruits of progress.  

Our success is also a living example of the power of international solidarity.  New medicines exist because many, including in Japan, supported innovation for the most neglected. 

Science and solidarity – values that were dear to Dr Noguchi. 

These values are more important than ever, with today’s cuts to foreign aid and attacks on scientific integrity. 

So, I want to say thank you. Thank you to the members of the prize committee for giving more visibility to these diseases and giving a voice to neglected patients, like Béni. Thank you to our Japanese partners for all your outstanding efforts in finding better medicines. 

Together, you are giving us hope that deadly neglected diseases can be eliminated altogether, bringing us every day closer to Dr Noguchi’s dream.’