PRINCETON: Man has a vision of curing river blindness
A college scholarship for his son changed Daniel Shungu’s life.
Because of the scholarship, Mr. Shungu was able to leave his 20-year position at Merck and take a 12-day trip to his native country, the Democratic Republic of Congo.
”What I saw on that 12-day trip was unbelievable,” stated the Lawrenceville resident. “It opened my heart, my eyes and my ears.”
His eyes were opened to river blindness, a disease that affects millions of Congolese people who live along the banks of rivers in the country. When adults are afflicted, it is the kids in the villages who take care of them.
”What that means is that youngsters can’t go to school and they will be illiterate,” stated Mr. Shungu.
This care and chores lead the youngsters to the river and then they become infected. The disease is transmitted by the female black fly that lives along rivers in Africa, South America, Central America and Yemen, stated Mr. Shungu.
After this life-changing trip to the Congo in 2006, he started the United Front Against Riverblindess, or UFAR, to focus on controlling and eradicating the disease in the Kasongo region in the eastern part of the Congo.
An African-themed dinner with a demonstration by African drummers held on Saturday at Princeton Theological Seminary raised $5,000, which will help save the sight of more than 800 Congolese people. So far UFAR has helped more than one million Congolese with the distribution of Mectizan, a Merck drug that cures river blindness when taken once a year for 10 years. Mectizan prevents the disease by preventing the black fly larvae from developing into worms that cause blindness when in a victim’s bloodstream.
It costs 58 cents to keep one person from going blind in the Democratic Republic of Congo. To treat one person would cost $5.80 over the 10-year period required for the vaccine. The $5,000 raised at the event will save the sight of about 862 people.
Mr. Shungu has raised about $50,000 with his efforts since 2006. Funds are used to train doctors, nurses and community distributors to administer the drug to villagers and transportation costs. Many of the villages are in remote locations.
The drug is distributed door-to-door in 363 villages over a 10-day period by 2,000 volunteers.
While $50,000 is a significant amount of money, it is only a portion of the funding required to help villagers, stated Mr. Shungu. Seventy-five percent of the funding for the drug distribution comes from the World Health Organization. Other finders include Hellen Keller International and the Lions Club.
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