Juror Flirting With John Edwards
Obama's Pot-Smoking Detailed
The Carter Center, a nonprofit global health agency founded by former President Jimmy Carter, announced the news Monday. The center has been working to combat river blindness since 1996, with the goal of eliminating the illness worldwide by 2015.
River blindness, also known as onchocerciasis, is spread by bites of black flies that are prevalent in hot, marshy regions of Africa and South America. A person needs to be bitten hundreds of times to contract the disease, so it rarely infects foreign tourists or even wealthier segments of a nation's population. But communities of poverty-stricken locals are another story: The Carter Center estimates that vulnerable Ethiopians are bitten more than 20,000 times a year.
Issouf Sanogo, AFP / Getty Images
This man lost his sight to river blindness, a disease caused by parasites. The disease is most prevalent in Africa and South America.
Black flies become infected with the parasite by biting infected people, and then go on to reinfect more members of an at-risk community.
Major progress in combating the disease was made in the late 1980s, when Merck offered to donate Mectizan, a drug used to treat and prevent river blindness. Ecuador's ministry of health began distributing Mectizan in 1990.
In 1993, the Carter Center spearheaded the launch of the Onchocerciasis Elimination Program of the Americas, which worked with several global health groups, including the World Health Organization, to target Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Venezuela.
Since the launch of OEPA, twice-annual doses of Mectizan have been administered to residents in at-risk communities. It's led to 85 percent treatment coverage in each country and prompted Colombia to announce in 2008 that it had stopped transmission of the disease.
Ecuador is now the second country on the Carter Center's short list of successes. The organization hopes to eliminate river blindness transmission across the Americas by 2012.
Ecuador now enters a three-year observation period to ensure that the parasite doesn't make a comeback, Dr. Frank Richards, an infectious disease specialist with the Carter Center, told AOL News. "There's a big difference between halting transmission and complete eradication," he said. "That waiting period starts now."
Despite success in the Americas, the ailment continues to plague African nations. More than 99 percent of the 17.7 million people infected with river blindness live on that continent.
And a 2007 study in Ghana revealed significant rates of parasitic resurgence, suggesting that the disease is showing signs of resistance to Mectizan. That's led to a rush for new treatment options, including a $2 million grant to a Michigan State University researcher last month for the reformulation of flubendazole, a drug used to eliminate parasitic worms.
Richards said that parasitic resistance has been exclusive to Africa and that countries in the Americas are still seeing widespread progress. Still, he adds, major efforts -- especially in Venezuela and Brazil -- are needed. "If we want to hit our goal, we need to concentrate heavily on countries that are still lagging behind," he said.
River blindness isn't a killer, but the disease leaves the afflicted vulnerable to subsequent illness, with an estimated loss of 13 years of lifespan, according to a Stanford research team. Countries also suffer widespread economic consequences, as victims are hard-pressed to work or to care for themselves, their land or their children.
Despite the hard work of international agencies, Richards credits Ecuador with successfully combating river blindness. "Too often, relief groups like to take the credit," he said. "But these are the victories of the countries. Today's news belongs to Ecuador."
