River blindness campaign ends

The campaign to eliminate river blindness as a public health threat in West Africa ended at a ceremony in the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou on Friday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported. "This day officially marks the end of nearly 30 years of work ...officials from the World Health Organization and others recognise the achievement of thousands of people working together for a greater good. These people –bankers, fly catchers, pilots, chief executives, community health workers and others – have prevented 600,000 cases of blindness," a WHO statement said. The efforts of those recognised, it added, meant 18 million people had grown up free of the threat of river blindness. The success of the Onchocerciasis Control Programme (OCP) had also led to thousands of farmers moving to reclaim 25 million hectares of fertile river land - enough land to feed 17 million people. "The accomplishments of this programme inspire all of us in public health to dream big dreams because we can reach ‘impossible’ goals and lighten the burden of millions of the world’s poorest people," WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland said. "When critics say the next proposal is too ambitious, that it will be too expensive, it will take too long, that funds will be wasted, that the job will be too complicated or dangerous – tell these critics to remember this day." River blindness occurs when black flies inject parasites into people living near rivers. In hundreds of thousands of infected people, the parasites eat away their hosts’ eyesight. The OCP started in 1974 when 10 percent of the population in high impact regions were completely blind and 30 percent had severe visual handicaps. "People in West Africa recognized that something associated with the rivers was causing blindness and farmers began leaving their fields. One study in the early 1970s documented that 250,000 square kilometers of once-productive river valley had been abandoned, which translated into an economic loss of $30 million a year," WHO said.