Category Archives: MDA

Reading List 9/22/2011

Maternal Health, MDA, Water and Sanitation, , , ,

Check out the latest in global health and NTD news with the today’s End the Neglect reading list! Today we’re reading about:

Distribution of filariasis tablets begins
“The Fiji government has announced it will be distributing anti filariasis tablets again in an effort to eliminate the disease in the country. The 2011 Mass Drug Administration (MDA) will begin next week Monday. The tablets will also be available at Health Centres and Nursing Stations in the Central, Eastern and Northern divisions. Ministry of Health spokeswoman Priscilla Govind said the Central Eastern and Northern divisions will undergo a further (9th) round of MDA scheduled for 26th September to 7th October.”

Johnson & Johnson Makes Strong Progress in First Year of Initiative to Improve Health of Millions of Women and Children in the Developing World
” … Since its launch last September, Johnson & Johnson has laid a strong foundation for measurable impact in several areas toward Every Woman, Every Child, the United Nations’ Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health to reduce mortality in women and children by 2015, including: expanding health information for mothers over mobile phones, helping to increase the number of safe births, doubling donations of treatments for intestinal worms in children … Johnson & Johnson more than doubled its donation of mebendazole, a treatment for intestinal worms in children, through its Children Without Worms program, up from 36 million doses in 2010 to 80 million doses by the end of 2011. The Company plans to continue to expand this program to distribute 200 million doses each year in 30 to 40 countries by 2015.”

Award-Winning LifeStraw® Water Filter Makes North American Retail Debut
“The award-winning LifeStraw® personal water filter is now available to consumers in the U.S. and Canada for the first time. The portable filter—used since 2005 amid harsh conditions in developing countries—removes bacteria and parasites from water, and is ideal for outdoor activities, overseas travel, and emergency preparedness. LifeStraw® is an elegantly simple but technologically advanced innovation. The filtering tube measures about nine inches long and one inch in diameter, and weighs less than two ounces. It removes virtually all bacteria (99.9999 percent) and protozoa parasites (99.9 percent) that can contaminate water, and it reduces turbidity (muddiness) by filtering out particulate matter.”

Mapping of Loa Loa Filariasis in Africa

Africa, MDA, , , ,

By Linda Diep

Loa Loa worm

Mapping of Loa Loa Filariasis (also known as loiasis) could help in the innovation of new strategies to eliminate and control onchocerciasis (river blindness) and lymphatic filariasis (LF), according to a recently released article from the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. The study found that mapping — a systematic method used in public health to monitor and track the pattern of a disease — could prove to be an effective way to help develop treatment for loiasis.

In African countries, an estimated 14 million people reside in the most high risk areas of loiasis, a disease that affects the skin and eyes causing itchiness, swelling, and pain. Loiasis is caused by the parasitic worm Loa Loa, and is transmitted through a bite from the African deer fly. Many sufferers of loiasis are also co-infected with river blindness and LF. In the past, co-infected individuals who have taken ivermectin, a drug used in the treatment of river blindness and LF, have experienced severe adverse neurological effects such as encephalopathy, which can put lives in danger. Continue reading →

Personal Perspectives Part 4: Inside look at Burundi’s national NTD program

Burundi MDA 2011, de-worming, MDA, , ,

Below is the last installment of our four part series featuring award-winning producer Jessica Stuart’s stories from the field:

Friday, June 24th- Citoboke

Guise and Wangechi work at the distribution center

We spent the morning in Bujumbura visiting the country’s drug distribution site. Although it’s a warehouse full of boxes, it’s an exciting place. We see drugs from the World Bank, from UNICEF, from pharma, lined up along walls waiting to be picked up and taken to communities that need them the most.  We find rows and rows of Albendezole. This drug is less than a dollar and we’ve already seen what it’s done across Burundi. The room is filled with kindness packed in brown boxes. It’s the kind of place we would want to know is there for our children.

Drug distribution center in Bujumbura

Although time is getting tight, on our last day of filming, we decide to go to a site that has evidence of another NTD, schistosomiasis (also known as Bilharzia or Snail Fever). If there is one thing I’ve learned in my travels to Africa, “Not far” means FAR. If you ask anyone how long it takes to get somewhere, the answer is always “not far”. “Not far” could possibly mean 5 minutes, but it usually means an hour or more.

We ask the ministry representative where it is. The answer, of course, is “not far”. We head North of Bujumbura for over an hour and a half to an area called Citoboke.  This is the part of Burundi that separates itself from Eastern Congo by a small river.  The feeling is different here. Drier, hotter, and more intense. The road is…. bumpy to say the least’ full of potholes.  Not far becomes 30 minutes, an hour, an hour and a half plus a stop at the ministry for protocol.

Boys collecting water in Citoboke, along the Congo Border

Just when I think I can’t hear anything worse about NTDs, Guise tells us about Schisto.  Although it has a low mortality rate, its chronic effects are devastating. It damages internal organs, impairs growth in children, and can cause damage in cognitive development.  I read that Schisto is second in economic impairment to a country only to Malaria.

snail samples from Citoboke

Schisto comes from fresh water snails. Guise and a guide from the Ministry walk along the Eastern Congo border to a riverbed.  Here, the doctor and Guise begin searching for snails. After a few minutes, they begin to find many and collect them for testing. At the same time, several families are at the same location bathing themselves and their children. It appears to be a bathing place for members of the community.

Crew films children bathing in Citoboke

Again, I don’t know what to say or think. The water is a blessing and necessary to life, yet it’s the water that is keeping the population sick.  It’s hard to watch kids playing and bathing, knowing they are putting their life at risk.  We film and gather crowds, curious what we are doing on the side of a road.  It’s hard to explain we are hoping to save lives when they don’t even know their lives are at risk to begin with.

The end.

We returned to our hotel, which felt like the Ritz Carlton after a week of bucket showers.

We sat outside of our hotel, watching hippos graze from Lake Taganika and the lights of Tanzania shimmering on the other side of the water. In the distance Burundian drummers were performing a celebration and the sound wafted our direction. Keith, Kenny, and I toast and think about the next time we will be lucky enough to travel dirt roads, take cold showers, film for 15 hours a day, get covered in dust,  and travel to far reaches to tell stories about people who need us the most. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

I think our translator Gerard summed up our trip the best as he got out of the car to say goodbye. He looked at me and said in his very deliberate English “When I started this journey I was just a translator of English. But after this trip, if one more child gets an albendizole pill, or one more person doesn’t have to suffer because of the work this group is doing, I will always know that I, myself, had a very small part in making my country a better place, and that brings me more joy than I have ever known”. Well said Gerard. Well said.

Jessica Stuart is an award winning producer and consultant. Her video work and live productions have been seen around the globe- on television, the web, and in theaters. She has worked for NBC Network News, The Today Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, ABC Network News, and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  In September 2008, Jessica created Long Story Short Media, an independent creative consulting and producing firm, specializing in short form, multi-use content. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband, David, her son Alexander, and their rescue dog, Riley Martin.

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Personal Perspectives Part 3: Inside look at Burundi’s National NTD Program

Africa, Burundi MDA 2011, de-worming, Maternal Health, MDA, , , ,

Part three of our four part series featuring award-winning producer Jessica Stuart’s stories from the field:

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011 – Karuzi

Excited children at Canzikiro

We travel 4 hours of bumpy, dusty roads- passing through tea plantations, getting into traffic jams with cattle, to reach the Karuzi Province.  This is a place that doesn’t often have outside visitors, so the cars themselves were a spectacle of mass proportion; not to mention the blonde sunburned woman and the tall South African man with sound gear strapped to him.

We visited a school called Canzikiro and were greeted by thousands of smiling faces. And yet, I am great crowd control because children think I am a ghost or an angel, they either run away or run to me!

We spoke with a teacher and she enthusiastically told us that she sees more children coming to school because they are healthy and because their families are healthy. She has seen a difference of children paying attention in class and able to focus.  The teacher, herself was pregnant. She miscarried the first time, possibly due to anemia from worms herself, but is looking forward to the birth of her first baby next month. There is possibility.

Children at Canzikiro school in Karuzi Province wait in line for school MDA

Children at Canzikiro school in Karuzi Province wait in line for school MDA

Man in Bugenyazi diagnosed with Trachoma

In the afternoon we traveled down more bumpy roads to Bugenyuzi,, a community with approximately 11 percent of the population suffering from Trachoma.  This is a new program and the inhabitants of this community press us for more. They want to know when we are coming back, when the next round of medicine is coming, and how we can help stop the suffering. The area we are in is difficult to get to. The word “remote” doesn’t do justice to its location. These are the bottom billion. These are the poor that are rarely reached, stuck in a cycle of poverty, yet with a desire to do for themselves. They just need a lift, a boost; and we can do that for less than 50 cents. The drugs are there. The knowledge is there. We can eliminate NTDs even from the places and in the corners no one is looking.

That evening, we sit down to a goat brochette, a gin and tonic and a cold shower from a bucket and a cup. There are no mosquito nets, so I sleep with my hooded sweatshirt on, a half bottle of DEET burning my skin, and hope for the best.Malaria is the least of my worries at this point.

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