As a resident physician I spent a summer in Burkina Faso – an impoverished nation in West Africa. For years a group of nurses with SIM (Serving In Mission) had been living on site, providing community health and clinic care in this remote, hot, and culturally distinct community. As I attended to ill patients, I noticed many with unusual nodules just under the surface of their skin – like the boy’s scalp in the photo above. A novice to such finds, I anesthetized the boy, incised his nodule, and out fell a white worm two feet long!!
This was a ghastly introduction to onchocerciasis – a parasitic infection appropriately known as night blindness. The adult worm produce tiny worms (microfilariae) that migrate throughout the body causing inflammation, particularly in the eyes. A prototypical disease of poverty, we have the means to both effectively prevent and treat onchocerciasis. All that’s lacking is the leadership to carry out this worthy pursuit.