Onchocerciasis then and now: achievements, priorities and challenges.

Onchocerciasis is an eye and skin disease caused by a worm known as Onchocerca volvulus. It is transmitted from one human to another by black flies of the genus Simulium. It causes an itchy skin rash, eye disease (often blinding) and nodules under the skin. More than 99% of the people with this infection live in Africa. In 1987, just before first issue of the Community Eye Health Journal was published, the pharmaceutical Company MSD (known as Merck & Co. Inc. in the USA and Canada) made an unprecedented commitment to donate Mectizan® (ivermectin MSD), for as long as was needed, to control onchocerciasis (river blindness).1 Mass distribution of Mectizan revolutionised the approach to onchocerciasis control at the time, and has since led to mass drug administration for some of the other neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). It had become possible to imagine that onchocerciasis would one day be eliminated.