|
Highlights
|
|
First Person:
Life with lymphatic filariasis — associated
disabilities
 E.,
now 70 years, was a strapping young man in an island in the Maldives,
looking forward to a full life of farming and fishing, when, at the age of
20, he developed fever. Initially, he didn’t take it seriously — after all,
everyone gets fever, and then it gets better, and he was fit and healthy.
Little did he know that his life was about to change forever. For, after
the fever, his feet began to swell. His family, relatively well-to-do, took
him to Kerala, India, for treatment. “I was
treated with tablets for six months,” he recalls. His fever subsided, but
the swelling on the feet — the most visible sign of lymphatic filariasis — has remained with him all his life. Now
seventy, he has no regrets, he has a large, 10-member family, but wonders
what life would have been like without his swollen feet.
More Info… Link to
Communicable Disease Newsletter [PDF 844 KB]
|
|
Sri
Lanka and Maldives
march towards elimination of lymphatic filariasis
 In the WHO South-East Asia Region, nine
countries are endemic for lymphatic filariasis. Programmes for elimination of this disease involve
implementing Mass Drug Administration (MDA) with two drugs – Diethyl Carbamzine and Albendazole.
In 2007 and 2009 respectively, Sri Lanka
and the Maldives
stopped MDA after completing five rounds, when microfilarial
(mf) rate was reduced to less than 1%. Following the recommendation of the
Regional Programme Review Group for Elimination
of Lymphatic Filariasis (RPRG-ELF) 2010,
WHO-SEARO initiated the process of verification of LF elimination in these
two countries by sending an expert mission to Sri
Lanka and the Maldives. This mission
completed the first step of the process of verification of post-MDA
activities as per the revised WHO (2011) guidelines, on 12–26 June 2011.
More Info… Link to
Communicable Disease Newsletter [PDF 844 KB]
|
|
Regional Programme
Review of Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis in
the Region
 Member States endemic for Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) in the SEA Region, and the Regional Programme Review Group (RPRG) met in Colombo, Sri Lanka
on 26-27 April, 2011 to review the progress in the programme
for elimination of LF.
Representatives from CNTDC, GSK, GNNTDC, RTI and USAID
participated. The participants
committed to expand LF-Mass drug administration (MDA) to eliminate LF in
the Region by 2020 as a public health problem as well to expand disability
alleviation. The participants also agreed to implement cost-effective
control strategies by integrating LF-MDA into control of other neglected
tropical diseases wherever applicable.
This was followed by the Eighth meeting of the RPRG –LF
on 28-29 April 2011. This expert Review Group reviewed requirement of albendazole tablets (one of the drugs of the mass drug
administration) and recommended the supply and additional support to
difficult countries to expand the LF-MDA programme.
The RPRG approved 412 million tablets of albendazole
for the year 2011 to be supplied free of cost to respective endemic
countries.
|
|
Marching towards elimination
|
|
About
880 million people living in endemic areas in SEAR are targeted for mass
drug administration
|
A world free of
Lymphatic Filariasis
|
|
Lymphatic Filariasis is one of the most debilitating and
disfiguring diseases. With the availability of new treatment strategies and
diagnostic tools which are cost-effective and with national governments
showing a keen interest, it is hoped to eliminate this disease as a public
health problem from the Region, within a realistic timeframe.
|
|
|
|
Archive
|
|
|
