1“Large watercourses will eat your eyes.” This saying from Burkina Faso will soon be as incomprehensible to Africans as it always was to Europeans. It refers to onchocerciasis, a blinding disease which, up until the 1980s, was rampant near the rivers of many African countries. This is where the black fly vector lives, a haematophagous midge whose painful bite can transmit a parasitic filarial worm.

Search for larval habitats, Guinea.

2In humans, adult filariae live under the skin of the knees, hips and ribs, where fertilised females produce vast amounts of microfilariae which invade the dermis, including the eyes, and die after two years by releasing toxins which cause the damage. To continue their cycle, they must be ingested by a black fly which will transmit them to another bitten individual… The intensity of the symptoms is proportional to the number of infected bites received.

3In the 1950s, in the absence of treatment, researchers initiated studies on the black fly’s life cycle. From 1960 to 1972, in three regions of Côte d’Ivoire, Mali and Burkina Faso, they tested protocols for the elimination of aquatic midge larvae using insecticides.

Woman suffering from onchocerciasis, Cameroon.

4The extremely conclusive results became the cornerstone of the OCP international project (Onchocerciasis Control Project). Designed and run by Orstom, OCP controlled the vector in 11 African countries while ensuring the weekly treatment of 50,000 kilometres of rivers from 1975 to 2002, thereby protecting 40 million people and returning millions of acres of land to farmers. The introduction of a therapeutic solution based on ivermectin in the 1980s changed the control strategy, resulting in the virtual eradication of onchocerciasis throughout the African continent.

“The onchocerciasis control programme in West Africa is undoubtedly a success in terms of disease control and environmental protection… This programme was a precursor to the principles of sustainable development.” 
Dr Boakye A. Boatin, former head of the OCP programme