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Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 20(1), 1971, pp. 104-108
Copyright © 1971 by The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

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Onchocerciasis in Colombia

Historical Background and Ecologic Observations*

H. Trapido{dagger}, A. D'Alessandro{ddagger} AND M. D. Little{ddagger},§,
Departamento de Microbiología, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad del Valle and the Tulane University—Universidad del Valle International Center for Medical Research and Training, Cali, Colombia

Historical and ecologic evidence is reviewed in an effort to account for the origin and continued existence of a focus of human onchocerciasis at San Antonio on the Río Micay in western Colombia, the first such focus observed in that country. From a Spanish colonial document of the early 18th century, it can be established that some of the Negro slaves then working in placer gold-mining operations on the Río Micay had been brought there recently and that some bore surnames that can be identified with tribal areas of West Africa where onchocerciasis is now present. It is suggested that the absence of horses and cattle at San Antonio is a key factor in the persistence of the disease there, since the presumed vector, Simulium exiguum, has recently been shown to be highly zoophilic elsewhere in western Colombia.

Accepted for publication June 19, 1970.


* Supported in part by The Rockefeller Foundation and by the Tulane University International Center for Medical Research and Training, Grant TW-00143 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, U. S. Public Health Service.


{dagger} Staff member, The Rockefeller Foundation.


{ddagger} Tulane University—Universidad del Valle ICMRT.


§ Present address: Department of Parasitology, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70112.






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Copyright © 1971 by the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.