Parasitic Diseases: River Blindness & Filariasis

Hope for River Blindness. A breakthrough in new research into Onchocerciasis (River Blindness) has brought New Hope to millions of sufferers of the debilitating disease. The breakthrough discovered by Eric Pearlman and co-researchers at Case Western Reserve University, Ohio suggests that the bacteria Wolbachia that is carried in the parasitic worms that infect people is responsible for triggering the immune response that causes the terrible symptoms of river blindness. The researchers found that the bacteria are susceptible to Doxycycline, a common antibiotic and can be killed in people infected with the worms.

RiverBlindness Onchocerciasis� is the world�s second leading infectious cause of blindness. Rarely life-threatening, the disease causes chronic suffering and severe disability. In Africa, it constitutes a serious obstacle to socioeconomic development. It is often called river blindness because of its most extreme manifestation and because the blackflies that transmit the disease abound in riverside areas, where they breed in fast-flowing waters. Fertile riverine areas are frequently abandoned for fear of the disease.

Lymphatic Filariasis, known as Elephantiasis, puts at risk more than a billion people in more than 80 countries. Over 120 million have already been affected by it, over 40 million of them are seriously incapacitated and disfigured by the disease. One-third of the people infected with the disease live in India, one third are in Africa and most of the remainder are in South Asia, the Pacific and the Americas. In tropical and subtropical areas where lymphatic filariasis is well-established, the prevalence of infection is continuing to increase. A primary cause of this increase is the rapid and unplanned growth of cities, which creates numerous breeding sites for the mosquitoes that transmit the disease.

.In the News

SUDAN: Aggressive attack on Guinea worm disease
IRIN, 23 May 2001

Ethiopia to Launch Campaign Against River Blindness Next Week
XinhuaNet.Com, 12 March 2001

34 Million People Protected from River Blindness in West Africa Success Story
Travel Medicine NewsShare - 2nd Quarter 1999

Zambia Health Information Digest
University of Zambia Medical Library, Volume 4 Number 4 Oct-Dec 1997

Information

Parasitic Disease Research from the Filaria Journal

ONCHOCERCIASIS FAQS

LYMPHATIC FILARIAIS FAQS

DRUGS & TREATMENT

Research on the web

Effects of standard and high doses of ivermectin on adult worms of Onchocerca volvulus: a randomised controlled trial
The Lancet7/20/2002

Last updated: June 13, 2004