About us
The goal of the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC) is to eliminate onchocerciasis as a disease of public health importance in Africa. The Programme was set up in 1995 to expand and build on the successes of the Onchocerciasis Control Programme in West Africa (OCP).
At the heart of APOC’s strategy to eliminate onchocerciasis is community-directed treatment with ivermectin (CDTI). This approach relies on active community participation to distribute ivermectin treatment. Communities plan their own distribution systems and make decisions about how and when the ivermectin is distributed. They decide which members of the community will be trained to deliver the treatment, and they also monitor the CDTI process.
At the end of 2009, over 68.4 million people living in 15 African countries were receiving regular ivermectin treatment through this pioneering approach
APOC’s achievements - (at December 2009)
- 16.2 million persons infected, corresponding to a drop of the number of cases from 41.8 million (1995) to 25.7 million (2008)
- 68.4 million people treated in 2009 (90 million annually by 2010)
- >146 000 communities involved
- >898 000 community-directed distributors involved
- 108 projects running in 15 countries
- >75,146 health workers trained
- 850 000 disability adjusted life years (DALYs) per year averted
- Treatment cost of annual ComDT with ivermectin: US$0.57 per person
- 17% economic rate of return
- The average cost of CDTI is S$ 7 per DALY averted
- Health interventions co-implemented with CDTI: over 38,000,000 people reached in 2009
- Protecting 102 million at-risk individuals in poor rural communities
- The itching prevalence was reduced by 68% between 1995 and 2008 with 8.9 million cases prevented since commencement of operations
- The prevalence of onchocerciasis blindness 0.40% in 1995 (385,000 cases) drops to 0.28% (265,000 cases) in 2010, or 120,000 cases prevented in 2008
