HCJB World Radio's medical team in Quito, Ecuador, is spearheading an effort that has eliminated blindness in a menacing tropical disease that has plagued residents of isolated riverside communities for hundreds of years.

The international broadcast media and medical missions organization, working with Ecuador's Ministry of Health, Christian Blind Mission and various international agencies, said elimination of the disease onchocerciasis -- river blindness -- in the country could soon become a reality.

River blindness is caused by a parasitic worm transmitted in the bite of blackflies that breed near swift-flowing rivers. The small, thread-like worms cause intense itching, skin discoloration, rashes and eye disease that can eventually result in blindness and even death.

"Now we are really closing the margins to be able to control and interrupt transmission (of river blindness)," said Dr. Mauricio Sauerbrey who heads the Onchocerciasis Elimination Program for the Americas, based in Guatemala, one of the other countries where the disease is endemic.

Sauerbrey said his agency next year will assist Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala and Ecuador in writing a document declaring the "ophthalmologic morbidity" of the disease. "That means there will be no more people going blind because of onchocerciasis in the Americas anymore," he said.

According to Sheila Leech, director of HCJB World Radio's Healthcare Division in Latin America, some 24,000 Ecuadorians in the northern region of the country's Esmeraldas province are living in 119 isolated communities along the Cayapas, Santiago and Onzole rivers where river blindness is present. They must receive treatment every six months. Those at risk include 10,000 Chachi Indians, 12,000 Afro-Ecuadorians and 2,000 people of Spanish heritage.

"The only way to reach these at-risk people is by wooden canoes, powered by outboard motors," said Leech. "While we're there, we also take care of other medical needs. Healthcare is a way of showing God's love to people."

"But we also preach, minister and model the gospel to them," she added. "This individual contact gives our staff opportunities to support pastors which results in solid church growth, especially among the black population."

In 2005 HCJB World Radio was awarded the José Manrique Izquieta Medal by then-Vice President Dr. Alfredo Palacios, now president of Ecuador, for its work with river blindness.

Dr. Ron Guderian, a former HCJB World Radio medical missionary and clinical pathologist, initiated the battle against river blindness in Ecuador despite being laughed at for his initial discovery in 1976.

"At that time, river blindness was thought to exist only in Africa," he said.

Merck & Co. developed a drug, Ivermectin (Mectizan), in 1987 that was capable of killing immature forms of the parasite in humans. Ecuador received its first donation of the drug in 1990.

After 15 years of continuous treatment in the Ecuadorian communities, the results have been impressive, said Guderian. There has been an obvious decrease in the number of parasites present in the skin and the total absence of the parasite in the eye. At the same time, the number of infected flies in these communities has been reduced 10-fold. (HCJB World Radio)