In the battle to fight a major cause of preventable
blindness, the Carter Center’s River Blindness Program and
Lions Clubs International Foundation are celebrating the delivery
of more than 50 million Mectizan treatments in 11 countries in Africa
and the Americas since 1996.
Around the world, river blindness has an enormous economic impact,
preventing people from working, harvesting crops, receiving an education
or caring for children. Fertile banks of swiftly flowing rivers
teem with black flies whose multiple bites insert a microscopic
parasitic worm into victims. The worm’s offspring swarm through
the body, especially the skin and eyes, eventually causing river
blindness, also known as onchocerciasis.
River blindness has infected 18 million people. Half a million are
visually impaired and another 270,000 are irreversibly blind because
of the disease, according to the World Health Organization. The
estimated economic burden of global blindness is more than $25 billion
annually.
"Fighting blinding diseases has profound significance, not
just for me as an interested observer, but for the child who will
never go blind and for his parents and grandparents, who now have
hope their lives can improve," said former President Jimmy
Carter, an active Lions Clubs member. "When people receive
Mectizan, it is often the only time they experience such hope. The
distribution of more than 50 million treatments is an incredible
achievement."
Health education and the distribution of Mectizan treatments not
only have prevented millions from contracting river blindness but
also have saved multitudes of communities from near extinction.
Villagers who once abandoned fertile land near rivers to avoid being
bitten have returned to their land and revived their local economy.
In coffee-producing countries like Guatemala, for example, onchocerciasis
may be considered an occupational hazard; the fast-flowing streams
where black flies breed often are located near where workers harvest
coffee. In parts of Ethiopia, almost everyone in an endemic village
will harbor the disease, and it is estimated that a typical child
is bitten more than 20,000 times each year.
But health education and treatment have transformed individual lives.
Semanza Erisa, 54, lived in the bush, an outcast from his Ugandan
village after being infected. His skin, he said, was like that of
a hippopotamus; the severe itching he experienced forced him to
rub against trees in search of relief. But six years of treatment
defeated the disease and saved him from losing his sight. Today,
Erisa works as a handyman and supports a wife and child in his home
in the village.
"Lions have been ‘Knights of the Blind’ for nearly
80 years," said Kay Fukushima, chairperson of Lions Clubs International
Foundation. "We are overjoyed that, in cooperation with the
Carter Center, we’ve been able to save the sight of millions
of people."
The foundation has provided the Carter Center with $24.1 million
in grants since 1996 to prevent blindness in Africa and the Americas.
Taking Mectizan is simple enough, but the key challenges are reinforcing
distribution networks, educating villagers about the efficacy and
safety of the medication, and enlisting the support of community
leaders.
"Local Lions, in conjunction with the Carter Center and ministries
of health, hold river blindness educational workshops for villagers,
community leaders and policy makers," said Moses Katabarwa,
Carter Center epidemiologist for the River Blind-ness Program and
a Lion. "Lions on the ground are extremely active and passionate.
They see the difference they are making in the fight against blindness."
A Carter Center conference on the eradicability of onchocerciasis
in January 2002 concluded that river blindness cannot be eradicated
globally using current tools and technology because of conditions
specific to Africa. However, regional eradication of the disease
in the Americas is possible if drug treatment can be given two times
a year to at least 85 percent of those who need it.
In Africa, where 99 percent of cases occur, annual administration
of Mectizan indefinitely will keep onchocerciasis controlled so
that it no longer poses a public health problem. In 1987, Merck
& Co. announced its decision to donate Mectizan in whatever
amounts are needed to prevent onchocerciasis for as long as necessary.
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