In the News

Edward Lloyd-Evans, North Highland Manager - Working in Africa to Eradicate River Blindness

"The perennial question “Am I fulfilling that purpose for which I am here?” plagues the minds of most people, and I have not been an exception. I think, too, about the African belief that the umbilical cord (an extension of the soul) has the “power” to call one back to where his or her cord is buried.

"After 18 years’ absence from my birthplace in Africa, I have been afforded the honor of a lifetime to return not to my own country, but to Burkina Faso in West Africa, to work with the World Health Organization’s African Programme for Onchocerciasis (river blindness) Control (APOC). My assignment with APOC would include assisting it and its partners (NGDOs, donors, Ministries of Health of 23 African countries, communities, international and private sector institutions) with strategic direction for the effective, technical, administrative and financial management of the programme’s multi-stakeholder trust fund.

"Being a part of this amazing and dynamic collaboration between APOC and its partners is a dream come true for me. By providing much needed health services to the poorest of the poor, APOC is not only strengthening health systems, but also building local capacity and empowering communities in the most remote parts of the continent, where there is hardly access to clean drinking water or electricity, and where communities are also contending with river blindness and other neglected tropical diseases. The terrain, which poses communications challenges for the distribution of medicines, has been humbling and eye opening. More importantly, this has crystallized for me the importance of duty in treasure, time and talent to the less fortunate among us.

"APOC, a successive phase to the river blindness control programme which started in Africa more than three decades ago, is widely acknowledged as a success story in public health intervention. River blindness is endemic in some 30 African countries, where more than 102 million people are at risk of infection. However, the successes already achieved in the control of river blindness are encouraging a move towards elimination of the infection and transmission of this skin damaging and blinding disease from the face of Africa. The outcomes from the interventions by APOC and partners include:

• •    > 16.2 million cases of River blindness infection averted as of 2008
• •    > 378 million cumulative persons treated as of 2008
• •    1.1 billion Mectizan tablets distributed as of 2008
• •    > 750,000 Community-Directed Distributors (CDDs) and Health Workers empowered in endemic countries

"The task is daunting but the enthusiasm to defeat this scourge, driven by the unrelenting commitment of APOC and its partners, as well as the strong determination and active participation of communities, have made APOC’s innovative, community-directed treatment with ivermectin (CDTI) strategy a useful and cost-effective tool in public health intervention.

"And so, when the thermometer hovers around 104 degrees Fahrenheit for days on end and you wake up drenched in sweat because the air-conditioner has stopped during a power outage; when there is not a drop of water at the opening of the tap or shower due to water supply cuts; when the donkey next door is braying at 3 a.m; when mosquitoes are eating morsels of your flesh and you pray that your malaria pills will protect you – you think about the people who persevere through these conditions daily.

"I also think about the lean APOC staff, who work tirelessly each day to alleviate the burdens of river blindness and its associated social ills for poor communities. And I think of my North Highland family, which afforded me this opportunity of a lifetime to take a leave of absence for an initial 3 months and then gave an extension for an additional 6 months (even though I was involved on a most critical client merger integration project), so that I could serve in my small way. I remember my humble beginnings and the opportunity to live out the shared belief with my fellow North Highlanders, that to whom much is given, much is expected. I believe that life makes sense only if we can relate it to lasting values….it is meaningful insofar as it relates to God and others (our fellow human beings), be they in the communities where we live and work or in far-off lands like Burkina Faso, West Africa.

"It is with this heightened sense of duty and responsibility that I exercise my duties here at APOC and in the local community, recognizing that without such programmes, without the investment of donors, partners & staff, and without the large hearts of companies like North Highland, lives would be less productive and the scars of poverty and neglect would gnaw at our souls until the end of time. I therefore encourage ALL to invest in APOC and its partners in the fight to eliminate river blindness."