Lymphatic Filariasis

Lymphatic Filariasis (LF), more commonly known as elephantiasis, is a parasitic disease caused by thread-like microscopic worms and is considered a Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD). For more information about NTDs, click here. Although the disease is not life-threatening, infected individuals with physical symptoms are usually affected during their most productive years. The disability and the incapacitating acute attacks caused by LF often leave infected persons unable to work, which can lead to or exacerbate conditions of poverty. The stigma which often accompanies this condition, means that those infected are often considered undesirable for marriage, which in many countries, is an essential source of security.

The disease affects over 120 million people and is a threat to one fifth of the world's population in about 80 countries, yet few people outside the affected countries have ever heard of it. The adult worms live in the human lymph system, which normally maintains the body's fluid balance and fights infections. When the parasite dies, it blocks the lymph system, causing disfiguring swelling of legs, the scrotum and the breast. Many people are not aware that they have the disease until years after the initial infection. Around half of those affected do not have any symptoms but may have an active infection in their bodies.

LF cannot be cured, but its spread and future cases, can be prevented with the delivery of drug combinations to populations where the disease is prevalent. Eliminating LF requires annual treatment of at least 80% of all at-risk populations with albendazole plus one other antiparasitic medicine once a year for a minimum of five years. HKI is one of 40 members of the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis, which aims to eliminate LF as a public health problem by 2020 and to alleviate the physical, social and economic hardship in individuals who have LF-induced disability. HKI combats LF in several counties where the disease is co-endemic with onchocerciasis, including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali, and Sierra Leone.