River blindness elimination in Columbia

Abstract

In 1996, Columbia began a mass drug administration programme to eliminate onchocerciasis (river blindness). By 2007, transmission of onchocerciasis had ceased in the last remaining focus of infection, Lopex de Micay, an isolated community in the southwest of the country, and drug distribution was discontinued. On July 29, 2013, WHO announced that it had verifi ed the elimination of onchocerciasis from Columbia—the fi rst country to eliminate the disease. Other countries in South America are not far behind. Transmission of the infection has either been interrupted or eliminated in 11 of the region’s 13 foci. Ecuador—long-thought to have one of the most intractable onchocerciasis epidemics among South America’s six nations with endemic disease—hopes to attain elimination status some time next year, subject to a WHO review. Guatemala and Mexico should follow soon after, which just leaves Brazil and Venezuela, where the disease persists in a nomadic tribe in the remote border regions among the Amazon rainforest. WHO’s announcement is testament to South America’s sustained effort, spearheaded by the Carter Center, to tackle onchocerciasis. In 1991, the Pan American Health Organization issued a resolution calling for its elimination in South America. The population requiring mass drug administration is now little more than 20 000, down from more than 500 000, and the last new case of blindness attributable to