@article{97378,
  keywords = {General Medicine},
  author = {Schmidt CA and Cromwell EA and Hill E and Donkers KM and Schipp MF and Johnson KB and Pigott DM and Schmidt CA and Cromwell EA and Hill E and Pigott DM and Abbas J and Adekanmbi V and Adetokunboh OO and Ahmed MB and Alanezi FM and Alanzi TM and Alipour V and Andrei CL and Andrei T and Anvari D and Appiah SCY and Aqeel M and Arabloo J and Jafarabadi MA and Ausloos M and Baig AA and Banach M and Bärnighausen TW and Bhattacharyya K and Bhutta ZA and Bijani A and Brady OJ and Bragazzi NL and Butt ZA and Carvalho F and Chattu VK and Dahlawi SMA and Damiani G and Demeke FM and Deribe K and Dharmaratne SD and Diaz D and Didarloo A and Earl L and Zaki MES and El Tantawi M and Fattahi N and Fernandes E and Foigt NA and Foroutan M and Franklin RC and Guo Y and Haj-Mirzaian A and Hamidi S and Hassankhani H and Herteliu C and Higazi TB and Hosseini M and Hosseinzadeh M and Househ M and Ilesanmi OS and Ilic IM and Ilic MD and Irvani SSN and Jha RP and Ji JS and Jonas JB and Jozwiak JJ and Kalankesh LR and Kamyari N and Matin BK and Karimi SE and Kayode GA and Karyani AK and Khan EA and Khan MN and Khatab K and Khater MM and Kianipour N and Kim YJ and Kosen S and Kusuma D and La Vecchia C and Lansingh VC and Lee PH and Li S and Maleki S and Mansournia MA and Martins-Melo FR and McAlinden C and Mendoza W and Mestrovic T and Moghadaszadeh M and Mohammadian-Hafshejani A and Mohammadi SM and Mohammed S and Moradzadeh R and Moraga P and Naderi M and Nagarajan AJ and Negoi I and Nguyen CT and Nguyen HLT and Oancea B and Olagunju AT and Bali AO and Onwujekwe OE and Pana A and Rahimi-Movaghar V and Ramezanzadeh K and Rawaf DL and Rawaf S and Rawassizadeh R and Rezapour A and Ribeiro AI and Samy AM and Shaikh MA and Sharafi K and Sheikh A and Singh JA and Skiadaresi E and Soltani S and Stolk WA and Sufiyan MB and Thomson AJ and Tran BX and Tran KB and Unnikrishnan B and Violante FS and Vu GT and Yamada T and Yaya S and Yip P and Yonemoto N and Yu C and Yu Y and Zamanian M and Zhang Y and Zhang Z and Ziapour A and Hay SI and Hay SI},
  title = {The prevalence of onchocerciasis in Africa and Yemen, 2000–2018: a geospatial analysis},
  abstract = {<p>Background: Onchocerciasis is a disease caused by infection with Onchocerca volvulus, which is transmitted to humans via the bite of several species of black fly, and is responsible for permanent blindness or vision loss, as well as severe skin disease. Predominantly endemic in parts of Africa and Yemen, preventive chemotherapy with mass drug administration of ivermectin is the primary intervention recommended for the elimination of its transmission.</p>

<p>Methods: A dataset of 18,116 geo-referenced prevalence survey datapoints was used to model annual 2000–2018 infection prevalence in Africa and Yemen. Using Bayesian model-based geostatistics, we generated spatially continuous estimates of all-age 2000–2018 onchocerciasis infection prevalence at the 5 × 5-km resolution as well as aggregations to the national level, along with corresponding estimates of the uncertainty in these predictions.</p>

<p>Results: As of 2018, the prevalence of onchocerciasis infection continues to be concentrated across central and western Africa, with the highest mean estimates at the national level in Ghana (12.2%, 95% uncertainty interval [UI] 5.0–22.7). Mean estimates exceed 5% infection prevalence at the national level for Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, and South Sudan.</p>

<p>Conclusions: Our analysis suggests that onchocerciasis infection has declined over the last two decades throughout western and central Africa. Focal areas of Angola, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Uganda continue to have mean microfiladermia prevalence estimates exceeding 25%. At and above this level, the continuation or initiation of mass drug administration with ivermectin is supported. If national programs aim to eliminate onchocerciasis infection, additional surveillance or supervision of areas of predicted high prevalence would be warranted to ensure sufficiently high coverage of program interventions.</p>
},
  year = {2022},
  journal = {BMC Medicine},
  volume = {20},
  publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media LLC},
  issn = {1741-7015},
  url = {https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12916-022-02486-y.pdf},
  doi = {10.1186/s12916-022-02486-y},
  language = {eng},
}