New plan announced to wipe out river blindness

The World Bank, USAID and African governments have pledged US $39 million for an initiative to wipe out onchocerciasis - river blindness - in Africa by 2010, according to the World Bank. The initiative is based on the "highly successful" West African Onchocerciasis Control Programme (OCP), begun in 1974, the World Bank said in a statement on Friday. The pledges came at a 10-14 December meeting which also decided to set up a network to monitor and fight communicable diseases in Africa. The OCP centre, located in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, is to be turned into the surveillance centre for the entire continent, the statement said. The OCP has saved 40 million people from the disease, including 18 million children, and made 25 million hactares of land safe for cultivation and resettlement. It covers Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. "In 19 countries covered by the new program - Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda - nearly 100 million people are at risk the disease. Of those, 22 million are heavily infected," the statement added. River blindness is transmitted by the black fly, which breeds in fast-flowing rivers. About 10- 30 percent of its victims become blind. The disease primarily affects African rural communities. The West African programme "has been funded by contributions of US $560 million over a period of 27 years," the statement said. "It used vector control against the disease-carrying black fly and drug-distribution via community-directed treatment to prevent 600,000 cases of blindness." "Effective aid programmes deliver lasting results," Ebrahim Samba, WHO's regional director for Africa was quoted as saying. "African member-states contributed in cash and kind, and donors have been steadfast in their support," added Samba, who was OCP director from 1980 to 1994. Present at last week's meeting were representatives of 30 African countries and donors, the pharmaceutical company Merck, NGOs, as well as WHO, UNDP, and FAO.