River Blindness A Success Story under Threat 英文参考文献.docVIP

Neglected Diseases River Blindness: A Success Story under Threat? María-Gloria Basá?ez , Sébastien D. S. Pion, Thomas S. Churcher, Lutz P. Breitling, Mark P. Little, Michel Boussinesq * “T he accomplishments of this Programme inspire all of us in public health to dream big dreams. It shows we can reach ‘impossible’ goals and lighten epidemiological mapping of onchocerciasis). Villages are selected in each river basin according to appropriate criteria, and levels of endemicity are assessed by onchocercal nodule prevalence in adult host samples [8]. By 2005, more than 22,000 villages in Africa (outside the OCP area) had been surveyed, allowing the identi?cation of many new foci (Figure 2). The new infected populations thus found, together with their demographic increase, certainly compensate for the number of cases prevented by the OCP (where it was estimated that roughly 3 million people were infected [7]). Presently, it is estimated that 37 million people carry O. volvulus, with 90 million at risk in Africa [9]. the burden of millions of the world’s poorest people ... .” These were the concluding words by former World Health Organization Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland at the closure ceremony of the Onchocerciasis Control Programme in West Africa (OCP) in December 2002 [1]. The success of the OCP is so undeniable and exemplary, with 600,000 cases of blindness prevented, 18 million children born in areas freed from the risk of blindness, and 25 million hectares of land safe for resettlement, that river blindness is currently considered a disease of the past. This perception nonetheless forgets that OCP covered, at most, 1,200,000 square kilometers to protect 30 million people in 11 countries, leaving a remaining 100 million people in areas where active transmission of onchocerciasis still occurs. After its 28-year ?ght OCP may have won a battle, but a much more dif?cult task lies ahead before we can claim victory against river blindness [2]. Clinical Manifes