This film looks at the success in overcoming a crippling disease that has besieged Nigeria, and large parts of Africa for decades. Onchocerciasis, commonly known as river blindness causes unbearable itching and ultimately blindness to the point where river-side communities were abandoned.

Thanks to the dedication of people like Nasarawa State Coordinator for Neglected Tropical Diseases, Jacob Righain, the support of NGO partners The Carter Center and donation of the treating drug Mectizan by Merck & Co., local communities have been empowered to break the transmission of river blindness and create a platform for future disease interventions.

Filmed just before the COVID-19 lockdown kicked in, we worked with a talented Nigerian crew to get right to the heart of the story. We edited back in the UK and created a bespoke soundtrack to help transport the viewer deeper into the world of neglected tropical diseases.

It forms part of a wider suite of films used in different ways that have told the Mectizan Donation Program story over the years, collaborating with multiple global partners from the Nigerian Ministry of Health and local government, to Sightsavers, the Carter Center and other key players in the game to get full engagement from the offset.

Humanity has eradicated one dangerous disease: smallpox. Under the right circumstances, we are on the path to achieve elimination or eradication of four others.

We were commissioned to create a series of films aimed at increasing awareness and accelerating progress towards disease elimination, particularly around neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) such as polio, lymphatic filariasis, river blindness & malaria.

By focusing on the key lessons from the successful smallpox and ongoing polio eradication campaigns, and hearing from the people at a global and national level, our films in GLIDE’s ‘Eliminating Diseases’ video series sought to  raise the profile of NTDs amongst stakeholders, funders and governmental organisations.

We’re proud to share that our film generated over 1,000 views on GLIDE’s YouTube channel, and over 150,000 combined video plays on their social media channels. In addition, page visits to the organisation’s website rose by 161%, along with a 187% increase in new users, with the most notable increase seen in visitors from target country, Cameroon, which saw a 100% rise.

As a crowning achievement, we along with Gong Communications were nominated as finalists in the 2023 Sabre Awards in the Central African category for work in raising awareness through GLIDE’s Webisodes Campaign.