First African Nation To Eliminate River Blindness Treated Millions With Ivermectin To Achieve Great Success

First African Nation To Eliminate River Blindness Treated Millions With Ivermectin To Achieve Great Success

First African Nation To Eliminate River Blindness Treated Millions With Ivermectin To Achieve Great Success A boy pulling a canoe on the Niger River – credit, Mohamed Yves Diarra CC BY-SA 4.0. Among the many bizarrities of the COVID years was the sudden demonization by major media outlets of Ivermectin, one of the most-used medicines on Earth, which just helped Niger to become the first country in Africa to eradicate a debilitating parasitical disease. Onchocerciasis, or river blindness, is spread via the filarial parasite Onchocerca volvulus transmitted through blackflies which breed near fast-flowing rivers. At its ugliest, it can cause severe skin disfigurations, permanent blindness, and epilepsy. Present in 26 African countries as well as parts of Brazil, Venezuela, and Yemen, its transmission was severely reduced in the Americas following wide-scale distribution programs of Ivermectin starting in the 1980s called the Mectizan Donation Program (MDP), managed by the World Health Organi…