How ESPEN processes the data shown on this portal

The data presented on the ESPEN NTD Portal are reported by national NTD programmes, mainly through the WHO Joint Application Package (JAP): the Joint Reporting Form (JRF), which reports the population, endemicity status and preventive chemotherapy (PC) delivered in each implementation unit (IU), and the Joint Request for Selected PC Medicines (JRSM), which reports the population requiring PC and the treatment planned. Trachoma data are obtained from the global trachoma database maintained by the International Trachoma Initiative on behalf of national programmes.

Before publication, ESPEN processes these data with a standard set of procedures, so that they can be compared across countries and years. The processing links each record to the official list of IUs of the corresponding year, harmonises the endemicity categories, completes missing populations with estimates, calculates treatment rounds and coverage, and summarises the results by country and subregion. The same procedures are applied to all countries, and the IU tables cover the years from 2013 onwards. They are documented in a series of standard operating procedures (SOPs), summarised below.

When using the data of the portal, please note that:

the figures reflect the data reported by national programmes, which remain responsible for them; ESPEN harmonises and completes the data but does not verify field data;
all years are processed again at each update, so that new and corrected submissions are reflected; published figures may therefore change between updates, and the most recent year may be incomplete;
where a population is not reported, an estimate is used, and estimated values are not flagged record by record;
figures may differ from those published elsewhere, including in WHO global databases, because of differences in timing, in the level of aggregation (IU rather than country) and in the completion of missing values.

The complete protocol, which brings all the SOPs together in one document, can be downloaded below. Each SOP can also be downloaded separately.

[Download the complete ESPEN data-processing protocol-EN (PDF)]

[Download the complete ESPEN data-processing protocol-FR (PDF)]

[Download the complete ESPEN data-processing protocol-PT (PDF)]

SOP-00. General framework

Describes the overall organisation of the processing: the data sources, the geographic framework (implementation unit, country and United Nations subregion), the order of the processing stages, and the conventions common to all diseases. These conventions include the definitions of programme coverage (population treated / population targeted) and epidemiological coverage (population treated / population requiring PC), treatment rounds, effective rounds (coverage of at least 65% for lymphatic filariasis, 80% for onchocerciasis and 75% for soil-transmitted helminthiases and schistosomiasis) and cumulative rounds. The SOP also describes the quality-assurance checks and the main limitations to consider when interpreting the figures of the portal.

[Download SOP-00-EN (PDF)][Download SOP-00-FR (PDF)] [Download SOP-00-PT (PDF)]

SOP-01. Implementation units, population and endemicity

Describes how the reference framework of the processing is built: the list of IUs of each year, taken from the official IU boundaries; the IU population estimates, based on national growth rates and age structure (United Nations World Population Prospects 2024) and on gridded population data (WorldPop), which are used only to complete populations that are missing or below 100; and the harmonisation of the population, endemicity and population requiring PC reported in the JRF and the JRSM. It also explains how country and IU codes are checked, how records that share an IU code are resolved, and which countries are considered non-endemic for a disease in the processing.

[Download SOP-01-EN (PDF)][Download SOP-01-FR (PDF)][Download SOP-01-PT (PDF)]

SOP-02. Lymphatic filariasis

Describes the processing of lymphatic filariasis data: the reconciliation of the endemicity reported for 2013–2019 with the IU classification updated at a regional workshop with national programme and data managers at the end of 2019, on the basis of the survey data available; the population requiring PC; the combination of the four MDA regimens (albendazole with ivermectin, albendazole with diethylcarbamazine, albendazole twice a year, and IDA); MDA rounds, effective rounds and cumulative rounds, including the historical rounds compiled from the records of the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control; IUs under post-intervention surveillance and under targeted treatment; and the indicators by country and subregion.

[Download SOP-02-EN (PDF)][Download SOP-02-FR (PDF)] [Download SOP-02-PT (PDF)]

SOP-03. Onchocerciasis

Applies the same reconciliation of endemicity as for lymphatic filariasis and describes the processing of MDA with ivermectin, alone or with albendazole: population requiring PC, coverage, effective rounds, cumulative rounds including historical treatment, and the population no longer requiring treatment in IUs under post-intervention surveillance. It also describes how IUs of unknown status in which no treatment has been reported are identified as IUs to consider for onchocerciasis elimination mapping (OEM); this is an indication for review, not a programmatic decision.

[Download SOP-03-EN (PDF)][Download SOP-03-FR (PDF)][Download SOP-03-PT (PDF)]

SOP-04. Soil-transmitted helminthiases

Describes the processing of soil-transmitted helminthiases data by target population (pre-school-age children, school-age children and women of reproductive age) and in total. It explains how each country and year is assigned to the earlier or the updated WHO prevalence categories, according to the version of the JRF used; how treatment delivered with the regimens containing albendazole or mebendazole, including the treatment of children during lymphatic filariasis MDA, is combined; and how the population requiring PC, coverage, effective rounds and cumulative rounds are calculated.

[Download SOP-04-EN (PDF)][Download SOP-04-FR (PDF)][Download SOP-04-PT (PDF)]

SOP-05. Schistosomiasis

Describes the processing of schistosomiasis data by target population (pre-school-age children, school-age children and adults) and in total. Because countries adopted the updated WHO monitoring and evaluation categories at different times, the population requiring PC is calculated with one of two sets of rules, chosen for each country and year according to the version of the JRF used. The SOP also describes the combination of the praziquantel regimens, coverage, effective rounds and cumulative rounds.

[Download SOP-05-EN (PDF)][Download SOP-05-FR (PDF)][Download SOP-05-PT (PDF)]

SOP-06. Trachoma

Trachoma data are not reported through the JRF. This SOP describes how the survey and treatment data of the global trachoma database are processed on the IU geography of that database: the selection of the survey results that define the TF and TT categories of each IU and year, the completion of IU populations, MDA rounds with azithromycin and coverage, and the indicators by country and subregion, including geographical and epidemiological coverage and trichiasis surgery.

[Download SOP-06-EN (PDF)][Download SOP-06-FR (PDF)][Download SOP-06-PT (PDF)]

SOP-07. Co-endemicity, water and sanitation, and country summaries

Describes how the results of the different diseases are combined: indicators of household access to drinking water and sanitation by IU, derived from geospatial estimates of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (available up to 2017); the co-endemicity of lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, loiasis, soil-transmitted helminthiases and schistosomiasis in each IU, with the corresponding recommended MDA strategy taken from an ESPEN table of treatment scenarios; and the country, subregional and regional summaries across PC-NTDs shown on the country pages of the portal. The recommended strategies reflect the reported status and do not replace national planning decisions.

[Download SOP-07-EN (PDF)][Download SOP-07-FR (PDF)][Download SOP-07-PT (PDF)]

SOP-08. Cartography and portal specifications

Describes how the IU boundaries and the analytical tables are prepared for display: the publication of the cartography by year, the yearly IU map layers, the maps offered by the Map Generator Tool for each country and period, and the charts of the country dashboards. Indicator values are not recalculated at this stage. The availability of a map for a country and period follows its reporting status, so a map may show no data for a disease that is not endemic in the country.

[Download SOP-08-EN (PDF)][Download SOP-08-FR (PDF)][Download SOP-08-PT (PDF)]

The procedures are revised whenever a decision rule, threshold, category or data source changes. For questions about the data or the procedures, please contact ESPEN at [contact address].

Last updated: October 2026