This 20 minute documentary chonicles the successful fight against river blindness in West Africa.. It features President Jimmy Carter and the voice of Ozzie Davis.
For centuries, river blindness (also known as onchocerciasis) plagued remote communities in Africa, Latin America, and Yemen. Before effective treatment was available, infection caused severe itching, visual impairment, and—ultimately—blindness. Communities abandoned farmlands in fertile areas because nearby rivers were home to the blackflies that transmit the disease.
In the 1970s, Dr. William Campbell of Merck Research Laboratories suggested the use of ivermectin (later named Mectizan) for river blindness in humans. Following the breakthrough lab work by Dr. Campbell (who in 2015 was named a Nobel Laureate) and his team, another Merck researcher, Dr. Mohammed Aziz, championed the clinical development of Mectizan. In the 1980s, Dr. Aziz led the collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) to design and implement the trials in West Africa that proved the effectiveness of the drug against river blindness.
In 1987, Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, N.J., U.S.A.* committed to donating Mectizan – as much as needed for as long as needed – with the goal to help control river blindness. Today, this unprecedented drug donation is helping to eliminate transmission of the disease – an unfathomable concept when Merck first donated Mectizan.
The program reaches more than 300 million people annually, and more than 2.7 billion treatments have been donated since 1987.
