Helen Keller International Receives $550,000 Grant From The Nippon Foundation to Combat River Blindness

New York, March 30, 2005 – Helen Keller International (HKI) has signed a $550,000 grant agreement with The Nippon Foundation to combat onchocerciasis (river blindness) in Africa.  The Nippon Foundation, a Japanese organization that supports international programs to help people achieve a healthy life, awarded the grant to HKI's project called “Enhancing Community-Directed Treatment with Ivermectin for Sustainable Control of Onchocerciasis in Africa.”  The project promotes onchocerciasis control and prevention activities in three highly onchocerciasis-endemic African countries – Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, and Nigeria. The goal is to build sustainable programs and models that will contribute to the elimination of onchocerciasis as a public health problem in those three countries and throughout Africa.

In Africa, onchocerciasis is the second leading infectious cause of blindness, and, in some countries, the leading cause.  120 million people are at risk of the disease, of which 96% live in Africa, and about 18 million people are already infected, 99% of them living in Africa.  Onchocerciasis is transmitted by the bite of the black fly, and the serious eye and skin manifestations of the disease are highly debilitating. In addition, the negative effects of onchocerciasis, a disease generally found in fast-flowing river basins, has precluded many of the area’s residents from effectively working some of the most fertile land in Africa, reducing family income and increasing poverty in communities.

Transmission of the disease can be arrested through the annual mass distribution of a powerful drug called Mectizan® (ivermectin), which is generously donated free by Merck & Co., Inc.

The African Program for Onchocerciasis Control, partnering with non-governmental development organizations and governments of affected countries, has devised a strategy to deliver ivermectin at the community level.  This strategy, called Community-Directed Treatment with Ivermectin (CDTI) empowers communities to take charge of their own health care and trains community members to become Community-Directed Distributors (CDDs) working within the health infrastructure of the country.  The CDDs must provide an annual dose of ivermectin to eligible members of their community for 15 to 20 years (the life cycle of the adult worm) in order to eliminate onchocerciasis as a public health problem.  CDTI enhances health care services at the community level, and allows for the inclusion of additional interventions that can contribute to improving the health and survival of the population. 

In collaboration with The Nippon Foundation and other stakeholders, HKI has become a leader in onchocerciasis control in Africa. During 2004, HKI enabled treatment of over 2.3 million people by training and supporting health workers to train about 12,300 CDDs in the 7,678 onchocerciasis-endemic communities of Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Tanzania.  The Nippon Foundation’s steadfast commitment to abolishing this disease has allowed HKI to make steady progress and substantive contributions towards the development of sustainable and effective programs.  This most recent grant will help HKI achieve the goal of eliminating the pain, suffering, and loss of productivity caused by onchocerciasis.