Onchocerciasis prevalence, human migration and risks for onchocerciasis elimination in the Upper Mouhoun, Nakambé and Nazinon river basins in Burkina Faso.

Historically, the whole of Burkina Faso was considered to be endemic for onchocerciasis (except a small area in the far north of the country) with prevalence rates 60-80%, but all endemic areas were included in the World Health Organisation Onchocerciasis Control Programme, which operated a system of vector control by larviciding beginning in 1974. In Burkina Faso larviciding had been phased out by 1989 when it was considered that onchocerciasis had been reduced to levels below the transmission breakpoint (and any residual infections would disappear without further intervention). There was never any mass drug administration against onchocerciasis in Burkina Faso, except in the Bougouriba and Comoé river basins (from 1996 and 2011 to present respectively) because in each of these two areas there was a resurgence of infection, and in parts of the Nakambé River basin and Sissili River basin from 1992 to 1998. However, mass drug administration with ivermectin was also phased in across the whole country starting in 2000 using ivermectin against lymphatic filariasis and is currently being phased out (depending upon the epidemiological parameters). In this publication we report a new epidemiological survey for onchocerciasis which was carried out in 2014 in the Upper Mouhoun, Nakambé and Nazinon river basins in Burkina Faso to evaluate the prevalence and intensity of infection of onchocerciasis. A total of 11,195 people from 61 villages were examined across these three river basins, and onchocerciasis prevalence by skin-snip was below 5% in all villages, below 1% in 57 villages (93% of 61 villages) and zero in 47. In the 14 villages with positive skin snips, prevalence figures ranged from 0.31% to 3.50 %. During the survey 31 infected individuals were found. All of them were Burkinabé, of whom 30 had a recent history of residence in Côte d'Ivoire (with a range of 0.5 to 73 microfilariae per skin-snip from two snips per person) and only one had no history of migration and presumably had an autochthonous infection (mean of 0.5 microfilariae per skin snip from two snips). According to parasitological indicators listed by the World Health Organization African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control in 2010, the situation for onchocerciasis was considered to be satisfactory in all three river basins and probably below the transmission threshold, in which case the disease should disappear naturally without the need for further intervention in the absence of continuing immigration. However, the results clearly indicate that infected persons coming from endemic zones of Côte d'Ivoire are settling in small communities which are otherwise nearly free from onchocerciasis in Burkina Faso. They are thus a source of continuing re-introduction of the parasite into the basins and could be a risk for the achievement of onchocerciasis elimination in all three basins. This would justify the continuation of periodic epidemiological surveys to monitor the possible recrudescence of the disease, and entomological (vector) surveys should be undertaken to assess and monitor the residual transmission.