The Carter Center works with national ministries of health in Latin America and Africa to eliminate river blindness, one of the leading causes of preventable blindness worldwide.
River blindness, also known as onchocerciasis, is a parasitic infection that can cause intense itching, skin discoloration, rashes, and eye disease that often leads to permanent blindness. The parasite is spread by the bites of infected black flies that breed in rapidly flowing rivers.
Approximately 20.9 million people are infected with the parasite that causes onchocerciasis, with more than 240 million at risk of the disease in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Yemen.
The Carter Center currently works to eliminate river blindness in the following countries: Brazil, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda, and Venezuela. Together with the respective ministries of health and partners, the Carter Center's Onchocerciasis Elimination Program for the Americas has successfully eliminated river blindness transmission from Colombia (2013), Ecuador (2014), Mexico (2015), and Guatemala (2016).
The Carter Center assists ministries of health in six nations to eliminate river blindness through health education and mass drug administration (MDA) of the medicine Mectizan®, donated by Merck & Co., Inc. When necessary and feasible, the programs add black fly vector control as a complementary approach.
Mectizan kills the parasite larvae in the human body, preventing blindness and skin disease in infected persons, and stopping the transmission of the parasite to others. The Carter Center works through national ministries of health to provide health education and mobilize affected communities to distribute Mectizan.
In Latin America, The Carter Center works through its Onchocerciasis Elimination Program for the Americas (OEPA) to eliminate the disease from the region by helping to provide multiple Mectizan treatments per year in endemic areas. Today, efforts focus on Brazil and Venezuela, where transmission still occurs in an isolated area on the border of the two countries.
In Africa, where more than 99 percent of the global cases exist and most Mectizan treatments are annual, the Center and its partners have successfully interrupted or eliminated river blindness transmission in parts of Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sudan and Uganda with repeated Mectizan MDA.
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The Carter Center works to eliminate river blindness, not just control it, in all the areas where we are fighting this neglected disease in Africa and Latin America.