{"id":29800,"date":"2025-12-07T15:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T09:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=29800"},"modified":"2025-12-08T16:10:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T10:40:24","slug":"onchocerciasis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/onchocerciasis\/","title":{"rendered":"Onchocerciasis"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Onchocerciasis Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Niger becomes the first country in the African Region to eliminate onchocerciasis. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Onchocerciasis<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Onchocerciasis, or <\/span><b>river blindness,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a disease caused by <\/span><b>Onchocerca volvulus,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a <\/span><b>parasitic worm.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The parasite can<\/span><b> spread to humans <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">through <\/span><b>repeated bites of infected blackflies<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the Simulium species.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>flies breed by fast-flowing rivers and streams <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in certain remote, tropical, agricultural areas.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Onchocerciasis itself <\/span><b>isn\u2019t contagious<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> because it <\/span><b>can\u2019t spread directly from one person to another.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the disease can<\/span><b> spread when blackflies bite infected people, ingest the larvae,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>then bite people who aren\u2019t infected.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>common throughout sub-Saharan Africa<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and certain areas of <\/span><b>Brazil and Venezuela in South America.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Symptoms <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">include a potentially <\/span><b>disfiguring skin rash <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><b>vision problems<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, even <\/span><b>blindness<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Globally, it is<\/span><b> second only to trachoma in causing infection-related blindness.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to the World Health Organization (WHO), river blindness remains one of the most <\/span><b>neglected tropical diseases,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> especially in remote and rural areas.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">Treatment<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Treatment for river blindness is <\/span><b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">ivermectin<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, an <\/span><b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">oral antiparasitic medication.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsonair.gov.in\/niger-becomes-1st-african-country-to-eliminate-onchocerciasis\/?noshow=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NOA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Onchocerciasis is a parasitic disease spread by blackflies near fast-flowing rivers, mainly affecting sub-Saharan Africa &#038; parts of South America. Read more about Onchocerciasis, Meaning, Treatment, Symptoms, Latest News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":77011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4084,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-29800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-onchocerciasis","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}