Merck and partners mark 25 years of battling river blindness

Merck and its partners have this week marked 25 years of successful collaboration to help eliminate river blindness from the Western Hemisphere.

The company has donated more than one billion treatments to nearly 117,000 communities in Latin America, Yemen and Africa over the last quarter-of-a-century.

Its partnership efforts resulted in interruption of disease transmission in four of six endemic nations in Latin America and nine regions within five countries in Africa.

The World Health Organization commended the MECITZAN Donation Program for its contribution to the near-elimination of river blindness.

Chairman and chief executive officer of Merck Kenneth Frazier stated: "The success of this program is proof that by working together we can successfully tackle the world's most pressing health problems."

To date, Merck has donated 5.1 billion dollars (3.1 billion pounds) in MECTIZAN tablets and invested some 45 million dollars in direct financial support for the MECITZAN Donation Program and Mr Frazier described the effort as "wonderful".