Library’s Endurance Series to feature Bruce Benton and his book ‘Riverblindness in Africa’

Bruce Benton

Author Event: Wednesday, February 2 at 6 p.m. – The Endurance Series Episode 7: The Enduring Benefits of Collaboration in the Treatment of Riverblindness in Africa with Bruce Benton. This hybrid event will be held at the library and by Zoom meeting.

Join us to hear the remarkable story of how a large public-private partnership worked to control and defeat riverblindness (Onchocerciasis) —a scourge caused by microscopic worms in the body that cause intense itching and eventually blindness which had devastated rural communities and impeded socioeconomic development throughout much of Sub-Saharan Africa for generations.

For 20 years, Benton led two international programs at the World Bank—the Onchocerciasis Control Program (OCP) and the African Program for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC), covering 31 African countries between them—to bring the disease under control. 

The World Bank created unique partnerships involving UN agencies, donors, NGOs, the pharmaceutical company, Merck, universities, African governments and the stricken communities themselves to effectively control the disease. Benton says a means to control it is now available as an oral medication called ivermectin. He documented the disease and the efforts to control its spread, if not yet eliminate it, in his book, Riverblindness: Taming the Lion’s Stare (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020).