Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/health-workers-in-tanzania-battle-neglected-diseases Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Senior correspondent Ray Suarez reports from Tanzania on a community drug distribution system being used to prevent river blindness, one of the conditions considered a "neglected tropical disease" because of its low profile in comparison to HIV, TB or malaria. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. GWEN IFILL: Next, the second of Ray Suarez's global health reports from the East African nation of Tanzania. Tonight, Ray looks at efforts to combat river blindness. RAY SUAREZ: The town of Tangeni in Tanzania's southern highlands is like other villages in Tanzania's agricultural heartland. Everything revolves around the river: washing, bathing, farming.The climate is tropical. The people are subsistence farmers. The village itself snakes for miles through the mountains along the water's edge.But the same water that is Tangeni's lifeline also brings danger. The river is home to terrible tropical diseases that wreak havoc on Tangeni's population, diseases like river blindness, which can cause severe skin aliments and loss of eyesight.Dr. Grace Saguti is an ophthalmologist.DR. GRACE SAGUTI, ophthalmologist: Someone will scratch her or himself the whole day, 24 hours. This person in this community has to go to the farm, has to cultivate in order to get food. So scratching themselves for the whole day, they cannot produce, they cannot take care of their family, they cannot progress economically. Health-wise, they will be also affected, because you cannot even have good food in order to be healthy. So it's all psychological, social and economical effect. RAY SUAREZ: Worldwide, 37 million people are infected with onchocerciasis, more commonly known as river blindness. Most live in poor rural Africa.The fly that brings river blindness prefers to breed in fast-running water, so the mountainous areas of this country are more prone to the disease, and it's not just one bite that infects a person. It's being bitten repeatedly so that the worm that causes the terrible disease gets to breed inside the human body. DR. GRACE SAGUTI: When the fly breeds, it needs the human blood in order to — for the eggs to mature. It also goes in a cycle. It grows to become a big worm. And the female and the male worm, when they mate, they produce, so it takes years.