This the VOA Special English Development Report.
Researchers have discovered a successful new treatment to fightlymphatic filariasis around the world. This disease is commonlyknown as elephantiasis. It is the leading cause of permanent orlong-term disabilities in developing countries.
More than one-hundred-twenty-million people in eighty countrieshave been infected with lymphatic filariasis. Most of the victimsare in poor nations in Africa, Asia, South America and islands ofthe Pacific Ocean. A parasite organism causes the disease. Signs ofthe disease include huge enlargement of the legs, arms, breasts andreproductive organs.
Lymphatic filariasis is spread to humans through the bite of amosquito insect infected with the parasite. Once infected, humanscan pass the parasite back to mosquitoes when bitten again.Researchers began studying how the parasite is spread several yearsago.
Jim Kazura of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohioled the research. He said killing the adult female parasite wouldprevent the development of new parasites in either humans ormosquitoes. To test this theory, scientists created a specialmedicine to kill the female parasite. Scientists have tested thedrug in the laboratory. But its effectiveness on humans has not beenconfirmed until now.
Doctor Kazura and his team of researchers tested the drugrecently in Papua New Guinea. They gave the drug totwo-thousand-five-hundred people living in unpopulated areas of thecountry. The people were injected with the drug every year for fouryears. Scientists found that the spread of lymphatic filariasisdropped by more than ninety-five percent. They also discovered thatthe treatment reduced the enlargement of the arms, legs andreproductive organs. Doctors had thought this was a permanentcondition.
The study’s results were published in December in the New EnglandJournal of Medicine. A separate opinion by an independent doctor wasalso included. It said Doctor Kazura’s research proves that a WorldHealth Organization campaign to end lymphatic filariasis ispossible. The WHO campaign was launched in nineteen-ninety-seven.Health officials hope to end the disease around the world by theyear twenty-twenty.
This VOA Special English Development Report was written by JillMoss.