Saturday, 10 September 2016

Major Causes of River Blindness.

As a Resercher on Leadership and Technical Fields on Human Development somebody called me this Weekend, Friday, 09/09/2016 to meet me up in my Office to educate him on the effects of the trachoma effection and the direct causes of the River Blindness? And for the interest of the general Public and the frequent reoccorence of the disease along Riverrine arears of tropical West Africa, I decided to prepare this note:

Onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness and Robles disease, is a disease caused by infection with the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus. Symptoms include severe itching, bumps under the skin and blindness. It is the second most common cause of blindness due to infection  after trachoma.


The onchocerca which is also called 'the blackfly' transfers the larvae of the parasite Onchocerca volvulus by the female blackfly after the fly gets a blood meal (bites) from the human body. The larvae enters the subcutaneous tissues and develop into adult male and female worms (filarial nematodes). These reproduce in the human tissue and form microfilariae that migrate to other areas of connective tissues and occasionally to the blood, urine, and sputum. In addition, both the adult worms and the microfilaria are colonized with bacteria termed Wolbachia that help these parasites survive. When the worms die, a host immune response ensues that can destroy optical tissue in the eyes. The life cycle of the parasites is continued when a blackfly bites a human during its blood meal and ingests microfilariae. The complex life cycle is shown below.






The Preventions Against the Prevalent Causes: to be Continued. 

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