Announcing New Mectizan Expert Committee Members
The Mectizan Expert Committee/Albendazole Coordination (MEC/AC) provides technical oversight of the Mectizan Donation Program, ensuring that the donated products are safely and effectively distributed to eliminate river blindness and lymphatic filariasis (LF). This year the MEC/AC welcomes five new members. We thank each for accepting the call to serve on the committee.
The new members are:
- Dr. Maggie Baker, Associate Professor of Global Health at Georgetown University specializing in NTDs, with over two decades of experience in integrating NTD programs into national health systems,
- Dr. Gautam Biswas, former head of strategic information and analytics for the WHO HQ NTD Department, who coordinated the drafting and publication of the WHO NTD Road Map 2021-2030,
- Dr. Moses Bockarie, a specialist in the field of neglected infectious diseases and an internationally experienced researcher now serving as Adjunct Professor in the School of Community Health Sciences at Njala University in Sierra Leone,
- Dr. William Brieger, an expert on the social and behavioral aspects of disease control and prevention, with a focus on training village health workers, peer educators, and community directed distributors for onchocerciasis and other NTDs, and
- Dr. Achim Hoerauf, a leading expert in filarial neglected tropical diseases and the development of diagnostic tools. He is the Director of the Institute of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology at the University Hospital Bonn and Professor of Parasitology at the University of Bonn.
For more information about all MEC members, please visit our webpage.
Remembering Lady Wilson
The Mectizan Donation Program joins Sightsavers and the global health community in saluting the life of Lady Jean Wilson, OBE, who died in January at the age of 103. Together with her husband, Sir John Wilson, she co-founded the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind (later renamed Sightsavers) to advocate for the visually impaired. She first encountered onchocerciasis in 1950 while traveling in Ghana. With an instinct for effective communication, it was Lady Wilson who coined the name “river blindness” for onchocerciasis. She later shared her rationale for the name: “You know, it’s no good calling this thing onchocerciasis. No one can pronounce it or spell it. You certainly can’t raise funds for it. Let’s call it river blindness.”
Sightsavers is now a major partner in the global campaign to eliminate river blindness, lymphatic filariasis and other NTDs. We are grateful for Lady Wilson’s longstanding dedication and look forward to the day when her dream of a world free of river blindness becomes a reality.
New Film Reveals Dedication Necessary to End River Blindness
The Fly Collectors is a documentary film highlighting the history of river blindness control and elimination in West Africa and the dedication required to eliminate transmission of the disease. It centers on a group of men in Sénégal who volunteer to complete the difficult job of manually catching the black flies that transmit river blindness so entomologists can test them to assess whether river blindness transmission is ongoing. Fly collectors in Sénégal play a critical role in moving Sénégal closer to the milestone of eliminating transmission.
The Fly Collectors was produced in collaboration with Reaching the Last Mile and the Mohammed bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity. After private screenings around the world, the full film was made available for public viewing for the first time on World NTD Day 2026. Click to learn more about this enlightening and inspiring film.
Applications Now Accepted for Merck Mectizan Award
The Merck Mectizan Award is given by Merck & Co., Inc.* and the Mectizan Donation Program to recognize outstanding individual contributions to the elimination of river blindness or lymphatic filariasis. In 2025 the honoree was Dr. Frank O. Richards.
The nomination window for 2026 is now open. We invite you to submit nominations based on the criteria listed in the information on the Merck Mectizan Award webpage.
In case you missed it:
Merck Extends Donation for IDA
In November 2025 Merck announced that the donation of Mectizan to accelerate the elimination of LF will be extended. Merck will continue to donate up to 100 million Mectizan treatments annually through 2030 for co-administration with albendazole (donated by GSK) and diethylcarbamazine in countries where river blindness is not co-endemic.
This renewed pledge was driven by strong progress reported by the WHO, including the 2024 milestone achievement of Timor-Leste becoming the first country to eliminate LF using this approach. Click to read the full announcement.
New Publications from WHO
The World Health Organization has released several new documents supporting efforts to eliminate river blindness and LF. These include:
Global update on implementation of preventive chemotherapy against neglected tropical diseases
See the “Resources” section of the MDP website to download these and many other helpful publications.
Remembering Dr. Bill Foege
Dr. William Foege (1936-2026) was a visionary leader who helped launch the Mectizan Donation Program in 1987, serving as chair of the Mectizan Expert Committee for the first 12 years. Thanks to his guidance in the early days, today millions of people are no longer at risk of river blindness and LF.
We are grateful for his work and inspired by his philosophy: “Public health might be the greatest measure of kindness, the greatest measure of how to treat each other.”
Click to learn more about Dr. Foege’s significant role in river blindness and LF elimination.
The Mectizan Donation Program is an international program to eliminate river blindness and lymphatic filariasis primarily funded by Merck & Co., Inc.*, with support from GSK.
*Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, New Jersey, USA, is known as MSD outside the United States and Canada.