Aina lives in a remote village in South West Nigeria, he knows one trade all through his life, the business of tilling the ground and harvesting it produce.
Aina like everyone else in the village depends on the river flowing across the rocky hill for his survival. So, this water is life but it also breeds doom.
One day he noticed a lump on his skin just like his grandfather and his great-grandfather and he said to himself, " finally my birth mark comes to life, I'm the true son of my father". Prior to to the lump, he had severe itching and he believed one of his cohorts had cast a spell on him. His grandmother gave him a coconut ointments for the itch. The ointment worked and he was back to the farm as always.
In his mid thirties a lesion start growing across his eyes and he senses a movement in his eyes. Gradually his sights are fading. He thought to himself the family curse is catching up with him. He made sacrifices to different idols, all to no avail. His father and grandfather experienced the same signs and symptoms.
One day, a group of students from far away University came for research and medical interventions. The area had been profiled to have a lot of blind populace.
After several generations Aina finally discovered what he had was a disease called Onchocerciasis, commonly called River blindedness.
Onchocerciasis – or “river blindness” – is a parasitic disease caused by the filarial worm Onchocerca volvulus transmitted by repeated bites of infected blackflies (Simulium spp.). These blackflies breed along fast-flowing rivers and streams, close to remote villages located near fertile land where people rely on agriculture. This is identical to Alina's demography.
In the human body, the adult worms produce embryonic larvae (microfilariae) that migrate to the skin, eyes and other organs. When a female blackfly bites an infected person during a blood meal, it also ingests microfilariae which develop further in the blackfly and are then transmitted to the next human host during subsequent bites.
Will he finally get a cure? You, he got a dose of ivermectin that one time, but he will need the dose once every year, consistently for 10-15 years.
The students research got published in one of the local journals that had low impact, and they were forgotten in the library shelf and no one visit the the village again.
Will Aina suffered the same fate again? Yes, if fails to get another dose of ivermectin the next year, and so will his children and grandchildren.
This reminds me of the research work you embarked on with Dr CIA. Keep it up!