Archive for the ‘Onchocerciasis’ category

UK announces five-fold increase in funding for NTDs

January 23rd, 2012

Over the weekend, Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) announced a five-fold increase in their aid for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).  Between 2011 and 2015, they will increase their support for NTDs to £245 million.

According to Stephen O’Brien, the International Development Minister, this increase in funding will enable Britain to protect and treat 140 million people in the developing world by providing more than four treatments every second for the next four years.

He said, “British support will take the neglected out of neglected tropical diseases and will not just save lives – but transform lives. By preventing the spread of these diseases and treating their victims, we will enable them to go to school and work so that they can help themselves out of poverty and eventually no longer rely on aid.”

The increased aid will be focused on eliminating lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis), onchocerciasis (trachoma) and schistosomiasis (snail fever), in addition to Guinea worm.

DFID’s announcement comes in advance of the Gates Foundation conference on January 30, 2012 in London, which will bring together governments, NGOs and the private sector to announce new and renew existing commitments to NTD prevention and treatment.

This is great news for the NTD community as a whole and in particular for The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI), two of the Global Network’s founding partners that will now receive additional funding.  Raising awareness about the need for this type of funding is why we launched our new END7 campaign, so we’re hopeful that many other public and private partners will follow Britain’s lead in the coming months.

Read more about the announcement in their press release here.

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Posted in elephantiasis, lymphatic filariasis, NTDs, Onchocerciasis, Trachoma, UK government

UK NGO sets their sights on river blindness

November 23rd, 2011

Sightsavers, a UK-based NGO that addresses preventable blindness in the developing world and contributors to End the Neglect, is this year’s Financial Times (FT) seasonal appeal recipient. Sgithsavers will receive donations from British readers who contribute to the FT appeal, which will run from November 21 – mid-January. The UK government has also agreed to match individual donations made to the appeal. Click here for more information on the appeal. Below an excerpt on the current state of river blindness published in FT:

“The river in Nigeria’s poor, remote northern state of Zamfara has always played a central part in the 70-year-old’s life. He and his friends swam in it as boys “until our eyes were red”. It is a vital source of water for homes, livestock and crops in Mr Adamu’s village of Birninwaje, a fishing and farming community of 3,000 people, where he was for many years the traditional leader. It is also the source of his blindness. River blindness is endemic in these parts. The parasitical disease is named after the black flies that live near flowing waterways such as the Zamfara – and across sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and parts of the Arabian peninsula – and transmit one of the world’s leading causes of blindness.” Click here to read the full article. Also, check Jeremiah Norris’ (Director, Center for Science in Public Policy, Hudson Institute) Letter to the Editor in response to this piece.

 

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Posted in Blindness, NTDs, Onchocerciasis

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Good News on River Blindness

November 23rd, 2011

By: Alanna Shaikh

Mexico, Colombia, and Guatemala are making huge progress against river blindness, aka onchocerciasis. Colombia has eliminated river blindness from within its borders, the first country in Latin America to do so. Mexico and Guatemala have broken the cycle of transmission, and they’re ready to stop mass drug administration next year.

Elimination is a pretty clear term. It means that the disease, while still present on our planet, is down to zero in one particular region; in this case, Colombia. But what does it mean to break the cycle of transmission? Well, onchocerciasis is a tiny parasitic worm[1] that has a pretty complicated life cycle, and one particular kind of fly is essential to the survival of the disease. Without those flies, the disease is not transmitted and dies out.

Photo Credit: The Carter Center

To break the cycle of transmission, you spray insecticide in the areas of fast moving rivers where the flies breed. No more flies, no more onchocerciasis. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it takes fourteen years of spraying to totally eliminate the reservoir of adult onchocerciasis worms and therefore make sure that the disease is gone. Once you’ve reached that point, it takes three more years of close monitoring to ensure that the disease really is gone. If there really are no cases in those three years, then, like Colombia, your country can be certified as having eliminated the disease. » Read more: Good News on River Blindness

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Posted in Blindness, Latin America and the Caribbean, NTDs, Onchocerciasis, Vision

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Bite of the black fly – River Blindness

September 21st, 2011

Reposted with permission from Global Health Frontline News (GHFN):

In poor, remote communities in the tropics, river blindness (onchocerciasis) infects nearly 18 million people – 99 percent of them in Africa.

Victims are infected by tiny parasitic worms that are transmitted by the bite of a small black fly that breeds in fast-flowing rivers.

Standing on the bank of the Kitomi River in western Uganda, Dr. Frank Richards, Jr., the Director of the River Blindness Program at the Atlanta-based Carter Center, says, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you got 20 to 25 bites an hour at certain times of the day here. That’s the kind of biting rate that will easily sustain river blindness.” The video below tells the rest of the story:

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Posted in Africa, Onchocerciasis

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