More than one-hundred-twenty million people in thirty-eight countries are believed to be at risk of contracting the skin and eye disease known as River Blindness, but hope for them grows yearly on account of your strategic efforts. Your work with the Centers for Disease Control and now The Carter Center, including five years in Guatemala and forays at considerable personal risk into the Sudan, has led to the current global treatment plan and your position as supervisor of the program that has administered ten million such treatments to more than five million people. These advances have contributed to the disease being halted in parts of Mexico, Guatemala, Equador, and Colombia. Drawing on the full range of your liberal arts education, you have conducted precise scientific work; administered global programs; conducted diplomatic negotiations with governments, multi-national organizations, and health agencies; and raised millions of dollars from the InterAmerican Development Bank, the World Bank, and the Lions Club SightFirst program—all of this work aided by your facility with English, Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese. As a result, the personal and social devastation of River Blindness is being diminished and may some day be eliminated, through approaches that already hold promise for the control of other diseases.
Megamenu Social