While AIDS and malaria receive a majority of aid in Africa, there are countless other illnesses affecting the people of the continent. Many diseases, which can eventually turn deadly, can be cured with small, inexpensive doses of medicine if treated quickly.
With that in mind, Bill and Melinda Gates have donated $13 million to researchers at Washington University in St. Louis in hopes of ridding Africa of elephantiasis and river blindness.
The diseases are both easily treated with already-developed treatments. However, the medicines are in short supply. The money donated by the Gates family will help prevent further issues related to both conditions.
"This project will work to optimize treatments that already are being used to help hundreds of millions of people," principal investigator Gary Weil, professor of medicine and of molecular microbiology at the School of Medicine, said. "We have simple and cost-effective treatments for many neglected tropical diseases, and, for a cost of about 50 cents per person, we can alleviate a tremendous amount of human suffering and disability and potentially eliminate some of these diseases permanently."
Both diseases are caused by small worm-like parasites that enter the body. River blindness, which is the second leading infectious cause of blindness worldwide, is often the result of a bite from a black fly. Similarly, elephantiasis is caused by worms transmitted to humans typically by mosquitoes.
Weil has tried to eliminate river blindness for years by way of mass drug administration – handing the drug out to everyone who lives in areas heavily impacted by the disease.
Weil is currently unsure which nations he will target, however he and his colleagues plan to focus on two areas of equatorial Africa because those who inhabit the region may also be infected by another parasite.
