Development charity Sightsavers has unveiled a ten year campaign to help eliminate one of the world's leading causes of preventable blindness, called river blindness.
Charity bids to rid Africa of blinding disease
Development charity Sightsavers has today unveiled a ten year campaign to help eliminate one of the world’s leading causes of preventable blindness, called river blindness (also onchocerciasis). With plans to fundraise and invest more than £27 million over the next decade to help combat this Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) across Africa, the charity is starting work this month in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where the disease is endemic.
Globally the World Health Organization estimates that 120 million people1 are at risk from, and 37 million2 people are already infected with river blindness, a parasitic disease transmitted by the bite of the black simulium fly which breeds in fast-flowing water.
However there is hope for the communities impacted by this devastating disease in Africa, where 99 per cent of the global burden of river blindness is centred2. Evidence from the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC), Sightsavers’ key partner in fighting river blindness, has found that a medicine called 'Mectizan'® (ivermectin)* taken six monthly or annually for 15 to 17 years2 can help control the disease. With the support of Sightsavers, a study has shown evidence of the feasibility of elimination of the disease as a public health threat by the end of 2012 in regions in Uganda, Nigeria and Mali.
Since 1987, global pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. Inc. (known as MSD in the UK) has donated 'Mectizan' for the treatment of river blindness. Sightsavers currently supports the distribution of this treatment in 13 countries across Africa. One of the main challenges in fighting this disease is getting the treatment to remote communities. Sightsavers has helped to pioneer the community-based distribution system which uses trained village volunteers to hand out the drugs at a local level. Because of this, it costs just 5p for Sightsavers to protect someone against river blindness for a year and in 2010 it was able to treat over 23.1 million people for the disease.
It is via this drug distribution method that Sightsavers plans to work with partners to increase efforts to eliminate the disease. It plans to increase annual treatments by approximately 30 per cent, to reach 30 million people a year. It will also fund the training of 150,000 community directed distributors annually to support the scaling-up of distribution.
To help Africa achieve elimination of the river blindness parasite, Sightsavers also plans to develop new programmes in neighbouring countries where the disease is endemic. Working with The United Front Against Riverblindness (UFAR) in the Democratic Republic of Congo it aims to reach some of the 19.3 million people living in at-risk communities3. Post-conflict conditions and logistical challenges mean that this country has received little support in the past but efforts will be scaled-up with treatment distribution starting imminently. Sightsavers also plans to support Ivory Coast and Angola in combating this blinding disease.
Commenting on the fast-track plan, Simon Bush, Sightsavers’ Director of Neglected Tropical Diseases said: “River blindness needlessly devastates the lives of individuals, families and whole communities. It could – and should – be consigned to medical history which is why we are investing in scaling-up and expanding our programme activities over the next ten years. To help rid Africa of this parasitic disease would not just eliminate one of the NTDs but it would alleviate the impact of blindness in Africa by reducing those needlessly blinded by this disease, removing a serious obstacle to socio-economic development across the continent.”
River blindness is one of the 17 NTDs identified by the World Health Organization which are believed to affect one billion of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world. Together, many NTDs cause severe disability, resulting in billions of dollars of lost productivity. Sightsavers is also investing in programmes to support the elimination of trachoma, another blinding condition, from across Africa and Asia by 2020. Sightsavers maintains that treating such diseases is one way to help alleviate poverty in some of the world's poorest communities.
Ends/
1. Yaounde Declaration on Onchocerciasis Control in Africa. (2006); A Declaration of African Ministers of Health on the future of onchocerciasis in Africa and report of the meeting
2. Senegal & Mali Studies, Diawara et al, 2009- http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2009/river_blindness_20090721/en/
3. Charting the Lion’s Share: The story of river blindness mapping in Africa, APOC, WHO, 2010
*Mectizan is not licenced for use in the UK.
For interviews with Simon Bush please contact the Sightsavers media team on 01444 446787, press@sightsavers.org. For media enquiries out of hours, please call 07775 928253. Further press information, including case studies, pictures and factsheets regarding river blindness and the NTDs, are also available.
Notes to editors/
About Sightsavers:
- Sightsavers is a registered UK charity (Registered charity numbers 207544 and SC038110) that works in more than 30 developing countries to prevent blindness, restore sight and advocate for social inclusion and equal rights for people who are blind and visually impaired. www.sightsavers.org
- There are 39 million blind people in the world; 80% of all blindness can be prevented or cured.
- In the six decades since its foundation, Sightsavers has:
- Treated over 206.8 million people for blinding and potentially blinding conditions
- Carried out over 7.1 million operations to restore sight
- Trained almost 0.5 million primary eye care workers
- Carried out rehabilitation training to 91,000 people
About river blindness:
1. Onchocerciasis (river blindness) is a parasitic disease transmitted by the bite of the black simulium fly which breeds in fast-flowing water
2. It is endemic in 37 countries, 30 of which are in Africa and account for more than 99 per cent of cases. 37 million people are infected2. Over 300,000 people have already gone blind.
3. In addition to blindness, river blindness creates nodules on the skin and severe itching, this results in damage to the pigment and over time the skin becomes mottled.
4. In river blindness endemic areas social implications include children missing out on education as they act as full-time carers for older relatives who have become blind. People also flee areas of fertile land, closest to the river with high levels of infection.
5. Evidence from the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC), has found that 'Mectizan'® (ivermectin)* taken six monthly or annually for 15 to 17 years2 can help control the disease. It does this by killing the larval stage of the parasite (the medicine does not kill the adult worm, which continues to produce larvae after mating).
6. Sightsavers’ founder Sir John Wilson first noted the devastating effects of the disease when he visited Ghana in 1947, and coined the name "river blindness" to describe it.
7. Sightsavers is the leading NGO supporting onchocerciasis in Africa – working in 13 countries (Nigeria, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Mali, Guinea and Guinea Bissau)
8. It costs Sightsavers as little as 5p per person to distribute 'Mectizan' to communities using trained local volunteers.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
