Elimination of onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis

Ten-year strategic plan in Sightsavers’ supported countries 2011 – 2020

Sightsavers works with endemic communities and partners in developing countries to eliminate avoidable blindness and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and promote equality of opportunity for people with disabilities.

Much has happened in the field of NTDs since the first editions of Sightsavers’ fast track initiatives were issued in 2011. A testament to that is Sightsavers’ work on onchocerciasis has been integrated with lymphatic filariasis. This ten year strategic plan now covers both diseases.

In 2015, Sightsavers supported 143 million NTD treatments. The scale up of treatments has happened, but the treatment gap across Africa remains stubbornly high.

It was only in 2010 that Sightsavers’ recorded its first non-blinding NTD treatment, lymphatic filariasis (LF), followed by schistosomiasis and soil transmitted helminths (STH) in 2011, in its output statistics.

Sightsavers’ ten year strategic plan for onchocerciasis, lymphatic filariasis and trachoma frame our technical response to these NTDs within an overall treatment strategy for scale-up of all the preventative chemotherapy diseases. The ten year strategic plan projects, and all individual NTD projects, work to agreed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) criteria for disease elimination and in-country work fits within the approved WHO NTD Master Plans for Neglected Tropical Diseases.