Fighting River Blindess in Southern Venezuela

Despite the health crisis that Venezuela has gone through, the onchocerciasis elimination program in Venezuela has continued to work reasonably well. One of its leading scientists explains why.

Two and up to four times a year, a team made up of health personnel from the Ministry of Health’s SACAICET (Simón Bolívar Amazon Center for Research and Control of Tropical Diseases), Indigenous Health Agents (Indigenous people trained in modern health practices) and military and civilian local personnel that give logistical support, visit around 393 indigenous communities dispersed in the jungles of the Venezuelan Amazon, in the states of Amazonas and Bolívar.