The motivations for Carter’s interest in Africa are deeply personal. His record should remind all democrats, including those in Africa, to hold leaders accountable to high ethical standards.
A nurse gives gives medicine, Ivermectin, against onchocerciasis or river blindness.
Issouf Sanogo/AFP via Getty Images
While Nigeria has made progress in controlling some neglected tropical diseases, it should do more as it carries a heavy burden of these diseases.
While ivermectin was originally used to treat river blindness, it has also been repurposed to treat other human parasitic infections.
ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP via Getty Images
Ivermectin has been a lifesaving drug for people with parasitic infections like river blindness and strongyloidiasis. But taking it for COVID-19 may result in the opposite effect.
Some tropical diseases can be treated with very inexpensive daily treatments yet remain common.
Avatar_023/Shutterstock.com
A cure for many tropical diseases was discovered 30 years ago this month. The drug is donated by its manufacturer. Why are we still dealing with neglected tropical diseases?
A father reads to his son while sitting under a mosquito net. Mosquitoes have undergone evolutionary changes due to long-lasting insecticide-treated nets.
Georgina Goodwin and Vestergaard Frandsen
Although there have been global efforts to eliminate parasites, some parasites and vectors will have survived attack because they have evolved resistance.
Tanzanian Seif Ramadhan is washed before being treated for elephantiasis.
Khalfan Said/EPA
The drug that led to two scientists wining the Nobel Prize for Physiology or medicine has made a significant difference for those suffering from elephantiasis and river blindness.
Many tropical diseases such as malaria, Chagas disease and dengue are transmitted to humans via mosquitoes and other carriers known as vectors. These vector-borne diseases continue to have a major impact…
Onchocerca volvulus emerging from a blackfly’s antenna.
US Department of Agriculture
Onchocerciasis, or river blindness as it’s more commonly known, is a major public health problem in the wet tropics, and especially in tropical Africa. This eye and skin disease is caused by a filaria…