Disease that is spread to humans by the bite of infected black flies in river areas has affected 18 million and made 300,000 blind, with most cases being in Africa
BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Colombia has become the first country in the world to eradicate river blindness through the distribution of an anti-parasitic drug in affected parts of the South American nation and a sustained health education campaign in local communities, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
The United Nations health agency officially announced the breakthrough against the disease during a meeting on Monday in Bogota with the Colombian president, health officials and campaigners against river blindness.
Dr Carissa Etienne, who heads the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), the regional arm of WHO in the Americas, said Colombia's achievement is "an example of commitment, persistence, and integrated work".
River blindness, also known as onchocerciasis, is caused when the roundworm Onchocerca volvulus is spread to humans by the bite of an infected black fly common in river areas. The parasite causes eye damage that can lead to skin disease and blindness.
The disease is the second-leading infectious cause of blindness worldwide, WHO says. It affects more than 18 million people across the world and has made 300,000 blind.
“The Colombia river blindness programme did more than just rid the country of a horrible disease. The community focus of the programme empowered people to take on other community improvement projects, like improving access to safe water and basic sanitation, providing better nutrition and health care, and even constructing a school,” Alba Lucia Morales, a Colombian health education adviser at the Carter Center said in a statement earlier this week.
AMERICAS FIRST, AFRICA NEXT
Since 1993, the non-profit Carter Center has led a campaign to eradicate river blindness in six Latin American countries - Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Venezuela - through its Onchocerciasis Elimination Programme of the Americas (OEPA).
Affected communities in Colombia were given the medicine ivermectin to treat river blindness, also known by its registered trademark Mectizan, twice a year over 12 consecutive years, WHO said. The drug, provided for free by the U.S. drug maker Merck, kills the worm larvae that cause skin and eye damage.
Local health care workers, community volunteers and leaders played a key role in health education and distributing the drug, which led to eradicating river blindness in Colombia, the Carter Center said.
It is hoped progress made in Latin America against the disease can bolster efforts to eliminate river blindness in Africa, particularly in western and central Africa, where more than 120 million people are at risk and hundreds of thousands have been blinded by the condition.
“The approach to eliminate river blindness in the Americas is being adapted by African countries, where over 99 percent of the suffering from river blindness in the world occurs,” Dr Mauricio Sauerbrey, head of the Carter Center's OEPA programme, said in a statement.
River blindness is also set to be wiped out soon in Ecuador, Guatemala, and Mexico, experts say. All three countries halted drug treatment in 2012 and began the three-year post treatment surveillance process required by WHO to verify elimination of the disease.
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