Lymphatic filariasis
Situation and trends
Progress has been made in mapping the distribution of lymphatic filariasis during the past decade. Altogether 72/73 endemic countries have initiated mapping the distribution of the disease. Globally, 1 410 million people live in the 73 countries where the disease is known to be endemic. WHO's African and South-East Asia regions harbour 95% of the population living in endemic areas, and 98% of the infected population. Of the endemic population, 879 million (62%) live in the South-East Asia Region (9 endemic countries) and 460 million (33%) live in the African Region (34 countries). The Region of the Americas, Eastern Mediterranean Region and Western Pacific Region (with 4, 4 and 22 endemic countries, respectively) together account for 5%. Due to the tremendous efforts of national programmes, more than 3.9 billion treatments have been delivered worldwide since GPELF was launched in 2000. By the end of 2011, 54 of 73 endemic countries had implemented MDA. Twelve of those countries have achieved the targets for interrupting transmission and have stopped MDA.
