Post by donaldmoore on May 7, 2015 20:37:01 GMT
The Smartphone In Your Pocket Could Help Treat River Blindness For Millions
You may not have realized it, but you quite possibly have a video microscope in your pocket with the potential to indicate treatment for hundreds of thousands of blind individuals throughout the world and millions more at risk for blindness. All you need is an app and a handheld device you could probably assemble in your basement with $100 in parts. And a ticket to sub-Saharan Africa, where most of the need is.
The second leading cause of infectious blindness in the world is river blindness, or onchocerciasis, caused by a parasitic worm transmitted through bites from blackflies that live and breed near fast-flowing rivers. The World Health Organization estimates at least 25 million people have the infection, primarily among 30 sub-Saharan African countries, with a couple pockets of Latin America and the Middle East. Among those infected, 300,000 are blind and 800,000 have some visual impairment, and another 123 million people are at risk for infection.
The drug ivermectin, manufactured as Mectizan by Merck , handily defeats river blindness as well as infection from two other parasitic worms, mosquito-borne lymphatic filariasis worms (which cause painful elephantiasis and afflicts more than 120 million people) and Loa loa worms, which cause ioiasis. Even better, Merck has run a Mectizan Donation Program – “the longest-running, disease-specific, drug donation program and public/private partnership of its kind” – since 1987, donating as much ivermectin as is needed to whomever needs it for as long as necessary.
But there’s a hitch.
Ivermectin is actually so good at killing Loa loa worms that killing them all at once in someone with too many in their blood – more than 30,000 parasites per milliliter – can potentially cause fatal encephalopathy, said Daniel Fletcher, a professor of bioengineering at the University of California at Berkeley. The drug kills all three parasites, but it can kill the person too. www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2015/05/07/the-smartphone-in-your-pocket-could-help-treat-river-blindness-for-millions/
You may not have realized it, but you quite possibly have a video microscope in your pocket with the potential to indicate treatment for hundreds of thousands of blind individuals throughout the world and millions more at risk for blindness. All you need is an app and a handheld device you could probably assemble in your basement with $100 in parts. And a ticket to sub-Saharan Africa, where most of the need is.
The second leading cause of infectious blindness in the world is river blindness, or onchocerciasis, caused by a parasitic worm transmitted through bites from blackflies that live and breed near fast-flowing rivers. The World Health Organization estimates at least 25 million people have the infection, primarily among 30 sub-Saharan African countries, with a couple pockets of Latin America and the Middle East. Among those infected, 300,000 are blind and 800,000 have some visual impairment, and another 123 million people are at risk for infection.
The drug ivermectin, manufactured as Mectizan by Merck , handily defeats river blindness as well as infection from two other parasitic worms, mosquito-borne lymphatic filariasis worms (which cause painful elephantiasis and afflicts more than 120 million people) and Loa loa worms, which cause ioiasis. Even better, Merck has run a Mectizan Donation Program – “the longest-running, disease-specific, drug donation program and public/private partnership of its kind” – since 1987, donating as much ivermectin as is needed to whomever needs it for as long as necessary.
But there’s a hitch.
Ivermectin is actually so good at killing Loa loa worms that killing them all at once in someone with too many in their blood – more than 30,000 parasites per milliliter – can potentially cause fatal encephalopathy, said Daniel Fletcher, a professor of bioengineering at the University of California at Berkeley. The drug kills all three parasites, but it can kill the person too. www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2015/05/07/the-smartphone-in-your-pocket-could-help-treat-river-blindness-for-millions/