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A veterinary drug that kills worms in cattle may also fight river blindness, a debilitating parasitic infection that afflicts 37 million people worldwide, researchers say. But experts caution against trying the compound in humans just yet. People contract river blindness, also known as onchocerciasis, when bitten by black flies that carry a nematode known as Onchocerca volvulus. The worm larvae mature and mate, producing up to 1000 "microfillariae" offspring per day, which migrate to the surface of the skin and to the eyes. When the microfillariae die, they cause itchy lesions that can lead to blindness. The disease often forces farmers to abandon lush river valleys rife with infected black flies for less fertile areas.

Doctors currently treat river blindness with ivermectin, a drug that kills the microfillariae and lowers the fertility of the adult worms. Ivermectin has slashed cases of blindness and lesions in countries like Senegal and Mali. But ivermectin doesn't target the nearly-mature worms that cause new infections from a black fly's bite. Instead, the drug controls the symptoms until the worms eventually die out. Scientists are still searching for a compound that would block infection altogether, for example by killing the adolescent worms upon arrival.
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