"The disease is re-invading some regions where it was thought to have been eradicated," Marcelline Ntep, head of Cameroon's river blindness programme, told Reuters.
She said many of those countries "have been plunged into prolonged civil strife and armed conflicts, thereby interrupting the distribution process and preventing the drug from reaching affected persons in some remote areas."
She cited Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Sudan and the Great Lakes region as areas where the disease had returned.
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The World Health Organisation estimates some 17.7 million people are affected by river blindness, about 90 percent of them in Africa.
In 1974, the international community began the fight against the disease in 11 countries in West Africa, its original home....
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2 comments:
Good job guest blogger.
River blindness may be making a comeback in other African countries as well as HIV drains precious health care $, and patients at risk for river blindess stop taking ivermectin as they become asymptomatic. Remember the adult worms for oncho live 10+ years....
+1 for guest blogger!
The chronicity of onchocerciasis is definitely an issue. In Africa the community nurses for each village give out the medicine every 6 months. However, many patients don't realize that they need to be on the medicine as they become asymptomatic, as you mentioned...
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