Meet Anthony Opoku, the 91-year-old who helped find solution to river blindness

Anthony Opoku was an assistant to Geoffrey Crisp, an entomologist who worked for the British Empire Society of the Blind in London, and was commissioned to Ghana where he worked assiduously to find a solution to river blindness.

Anthony Opoku is a native of Kpando in the Volta region who travelled to London to work with Crisp for some time and later moved to Sierra Leone to work with Development Co, which is an iron mining company to help eradicate and control black flies.

Unfortunately, his partner, Crisp met an untimely death and passed away, leaving Opoku alone to continue with this important work as a contractor with several other organisations.

He also worked on a USAID project with an American, Phillip C. Pierce, in collaboration with the National Institute of Health On Aquatic Weed Survey and Control Volta Lake in 1969.

Anthony Opoku worked on controlling black flies below the Lake in Akosombo (Volta River Authority) and later worked with the World Health Organisation (WHO) Onchocerciasis Control Programme as an Aerial Supervisor based in Tamale, before he was transferred to Lama Kara in Togo.

During his stay in Ghana, he discovered that black flies, which caused river blindness, bred in fast-flowing rivers and helped in the publication of Crisp’s book, which is now a source of reference in many scientific journals and articles.

River blindness is caused by parasitic worms of the filaria group, Oncho-cerca volvulus, when an infected human is bitten by the female of the fly vector (Simulium dammonsum in Ghana).

This is a pervasive disease that causes horrific itching, disfigurement and loss of vision.

Anthony Opoku after discovering black flies, which cause river blindness, devised a means of finding a solution to the disease.

Celebrating the 91-year-old Anthony Opoku, Ben Dotsei Malor, who was the Head of Communications and presidential Spokesperson at the Office of the President under John Dramani Mahama, described him as a great servant of Ghana.

See the post by Dotsei Malor below:

SB/AE

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