Guardian examines challenges of eliminating river blindness in Africa

Dec 18 2012

The Guardian's "Global Development Professionals Network" blog "reports on the challenges of eliminating river blindness from Africa by 2025." "The implications of shift from disease control to elimination are considerable, as has been the case with the objective to eliminate onchocerciasis (better known as river blindness) by 2025, decided by the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC) back in 2009," the blog writes, detailing elimination efforts against the disease since the 1970s. "Together, 20 years of vector control and 25 years of ivermectin treatment have brought onchocerciasis prevalence down to insignificant levels in many countries," the blog states. However, "the disease still exists," the blog notes and highlights a number of challenges to achieving elimination, such as raising funds for surveillance efforts and achieving universal treatment coverage due to "a potentially lethal reaction [to the drug] in patients infected with loa-loa, a parasite common in forest areas" (Filou, 12/17).