Changes in ocular onchocerciasis after two rounds of community-based ivermectin treatment in a holo-endemic onchocerciasis focus

Abstract

In a longitudinal study to determine the effect of annual community-based treatment of ocular onchocerciasis with ivermectin, the population living in the 3 most affected villages in the holo-endemic onchocerciasis focus of Asubende in Ghana were re-examined 16 and 24 months after initiating treatment. Ocular microfilarial loads had decreased to very low levels in nearly all of the 334 examined persons who were treated twice. Only very few subjects had ocular loads of 32 microfilariae or more in the anterior chamber of the eye, but this was not associated with deterioration of ocular lesions. Important regression of both early and advanced lesions of the anterior segment of the eye was observed, which was highly statistically significant with respect to iridocyclitis. Lesions of the posterior segment of the eye remained stable. Though no systematic change in the visual acuity of the population was observed, 3 new cases of blindness occurred in persons who already had eye lesions at such an advanced stage that ivermectin treatment could no longer affect the outcome. The results suggest that annual ivermectin treatment is adequate to control onchocercal ocular disease even in populations with very high endemicity levels.