[Launching of mass treatment of onchocerciasis]

Ivermectine, MECTIZAN patented, is a new anti-parasitic product with wide spectrum, is an efficient microfiliar destructive, and is well tolerated by human being struck down by onchocercosis (filariasis which affects badly local populations in the endemic centres). The launching of a therapeutic mass campaign in North Cameroon in 1987, at an onchocercosis centre located in Sahel savanna (Vina Valley) provides more precise methodology to be used in the field and provides the analysis of the results already obtained; these results seem to be favourable both on parasitologic and ophthalmologic point of view. A new epoch begins, that way, mainly for ophthalmologists and also for all practitioners desirous to fight against onchocercosis which is both a gruesome scourge and a health problem in Black Africa.