monday 3 february 2025
Niamey, Niger

Niger is the first African country to have eliminated onchocerciasis, more commonly known as “river blindness”, a parasitic disease and the second leading cause of blindness worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Thursday.
Niger is “the first country in Africa” and “the fifth country in the world” to “be recognized by WHO as having interrupted transmission of the parasite” that causes onchocerciasis, the UN agency said in a statement.
“I congratulate Niger on its commitment to freeing its population from this stigmatizing blinding disease, which causes so much human suffering among the poorest,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, quoted in the text.
The disease is transmitted by the bite of an infected black fly, found mainly near waterways.
Between 1976 and 1989, WHO recalls having launched a program in West Africa, enabling countries like Niger to spray insecticides and reduce transmission of the disease.
Then, between 2008 and 2019, the massive administration of ivermectin- and albendazole-based drugs interrupted transmission of the parasite.

Onchocerciasis “has also hampered the economic development of affected communities by keeping people away from rivers, which are often essential to their livelihoods”, lamented WHO Regional Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti.
“The partnership between the Nigerien government, WHO and non-governmental organizations has made a decisive contribution to Niger’s success,” she added.
Onchocerciasis is the second most common infectious cause of blindness in the world, after trachoma.
It mainly affects rural populations in sub-Saharan Africa, Yemen and a few areas in Latin America.
By 2013, Niger had eliminated its first neglected tropical disease: dracunculiasis, or Guinea worm disease.

Humaniterre with AFP