Eliminating Elephantiasis

You’ve probably seen pictures of the enormous, swollen legs of people with elephantiasis. This is a rare tropical disease of the lymph system caused by parasitic worms, and is transmitted by mosquitoes. When I was in the Royal Air Force (UK) in 1959 there was a campaign to eliminate the disease in several Pacific islands by killing the mosquito population. Fifty years later I saw posters of the French Government’s efforts along the same lines in the Marquesas Islands. And this month we read in PLoS that the World Health Organization’s program is ‘on track’ to eliminate the disease globally by 2020.

Two major drug companies – GlaxoSmithKline and Merck – make effective drugs for the disease, which they have donated to the program. This has enabled the organizers to keep the costs low; they are estimated to be less than 50 cents per person. So far the program has prevented 6.6 million children from getting elephantiasis, and stopped another 9.5 million people already infected from progressing to the advanced stages.

It’s a pleasure to report this progress, although it’s relatively slow. The struggle to eradicate malaria in Africa has made considerable progress, but the problem is infinitely larger, and the target year – 2010 – is much too close to be realistic. The ubiquitous mosquito will only gain strength from the global warming we are experiencing.