Onchocerciasis Control Programme in West Africa
Programa de Lucha contra la Oncocercosis en África Occidental
- Date
- 1974-2002 · confidence high
- Place
- Ouagadougou, Centre Region, Burkina Faso
- Credited to
- WHO, World Bank, FAO and UNDP
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
Between 1974 and 2002 an eleven-country programme sprayed larvicide from the air over the rivers where black flies that transmit river blindness breed. From 1987 it added ivermectin (Mectizan), and prevented hundreds of thousands of cases of blindness.
It was headquartered in Ouagadougou; the programme showed the importance of vector control and drug donation (Merck, 1987).
What it led to
- freeing fertile river valley lands
- community-directed ivermectin distribution programmes
- an example of international cooperation against a tropical disease