Earlier this week, the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer ran a segment on Tanzania’s efforts to control onchocerciasis (river blindness), by engaging community drug distributors to deliver treatments to some of the country’s most remote areas. In Tanzania, an estimated 4 million people at risk for the infection. Worldwide, more than 37 million people are infected with the disease, which causes blindness, skin lesion, eye diseases, and severe itching.
This segment features the work of the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC) and reveals how bicycles are a major part of breaking the cycle of disease for the country’s vulnerable citizens.
