Onchocerciasis:
Niger becomes the first country in the African Region to eliminate onchocerciasis.
- Onchocerciasis, or river blindness, is a disease caused by Onchocerca volvulus, a parasitic worm.
- The parasite can spread to humans through repeated bites of infected blackflies of the Simulium species.
- The flies breed by fast-flowing rivers and streams in certain remote, tropical, agricultural areas.
- Onchocerciasis itself isn’t contagious because it can’t spread directly from one person to another.
- But the disease can spread when blackflies bite infected people, ingest the larvae, and then bite people who aren’t infected.
- It is common throughout sub-Saharan Africa and certain areas of Brazil and Venezuela in South America.
- Symptoms include a potentially disfiguring skin rash and vision problems, even blindness.
- Globally, it is second only to trachoma in causing infection-related blindness.
- According to the World Health Organization (WHO), river blindness remains one of the most neglected tropical diseases, especially in remote and rural areas.
- Treatment for river blindness is ivermectin, an oral antiparasitic medication.
