Filariasis

In the quiet of a courtyard in the northern Nigerian city of Jos, a dozen people sit in a circle on white plastic chairs, talking about their affliction: lymphatic filariasis, an infectious disease also known as elephantiasis.

Lymphatic filariasis, more commonly known as elephantiasis, afflicts many of the world's most vulnerable communities.

Doctor Kazura and his team of researchers tested the drug recently in Papua New Guinea. They gave the drug to two-thousand-five-hundred people living in unpopulated areas of the country. The people were injected with the drug every year for four years. Scientists found that the spread of lymphatic filariasis dropped by more than ninety-five percent. They also discovered that the treatment reduced the enlargement of the arms, legs and reproductive organs. Doctors had thought this was a permanent condition.

More than one billion people in 80 countries are at risk of contracting lymphatic filariasis, known as elephantiasis, which is transmitted by mosquitos infected with parasitic filarial worms. The worms lodge in the lymphatic system, causing accumulations of lymph fluid that lead to massive swellings of limbs, usually the feet.

David Molyneux is with the Lymphatic Filariasis Center at the School of Tropical Medicine in Liverpool. He says that drug companies are donating two of the antiworm drugs, ivermectin and albendazole.