Book Description

Annotation World Bank Technical Paper No. 282. This volume presents a cost-benefit analysis of the Onchocerciasis (Riverblindness) Control Program (OCP) by examining its costs and the measurable economic benefits gained from the successful control of the disease. Widely recognized as one of the most successful disease control programs in the history of development assistance, the OCP projects the elimination of riverblindness throughout an eleven-country subregion of West Africa within the next eight years. This program, which began in the early 1970s, was the World Bank's first major venture into the health field. The Bank asked a large donor community of more than 20 governments and international organizations to make a long-term commitment of more than US$500 million to implement the OCP. This paper documents the benefits in economic terms from the large investment and shows that large-scale, well-conceived health interventions are clearly the business of development. The program improves the health and living environment of the rural population and frees previously oncho-ridden tracts of land for settlement and cultivation.