Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:44:0
Melvin Baker - AHN Reporter
Geneva, Switzerland (AHN) - Researchers in Africa will soon begin testing a new drug in the treatment of river blindness, a disease spread by flies that is one of the leading causes of blindness on the Dark Continent.
Clinical trials in three African countries will test the drug moxidectin for its ability to eliminate onchocerciasis, or river blindness, the World Health Organization announced Wednesday.
"This is a devastating illness that has plagued 30 African countries for centuries, in particular the populations in the most remote areas 'beyond the end of the road'," says WHO official Dr Uche Amazigo. "Over 100 million people are at risk of infection with onchocerciasis in Africa and a few small areas in the Americas and Yemen."
The disease is spread to humans by the bite of a black fly that breeds in fast running streams. The bite deposits larvae into the body, where the larvae develop into adult worms that can live for up to 14 years, causing skin lesions and blindness.
WHO is conducting the tests in Ghana, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo in cooperation with Wyeth, the drug's manufacturer. Testing will take place over the next two and half years.
Ivermectin has been used to treat onchocerciasis for the past 20 years, WHO said. The drug kills the larvae but not the adult worm, so yearly treatments are necessary.
Wyeth makes a gel form of moxidectin that is approved only for treating internal parasites in horses.
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