Introduction
infectious disease, filarial disease, microfilaraemia
INFECTIOUS DISEASE, LOIASIS, CHRONIC INFECTION, LOIASIS
Loiasis is a highly neglected infectious disease caused by the filarial nematode Currently there are no control programs for this filarial disease in any of the endemic countries. To effectively reduce onwards transmission of this chronic infection, clearance of microfilaraemia is necessary to reduce infectiousness to the intermediate arthropod hosts Ivermectin is one of the most widely used antiparasitic drugs [Albendazole has been demonstrated to exert a slow but reliable activity against microfilariae of The clinical evaluation of treatment approaches suitable for mass drug administration programs are necessary to ensure that these regimens prove safe and effective in the control of loiasis. As DEC and ivermectin cannot be used without special precaution due to safety concerns in highly microfilaraemic individuals, the use of albendazole as initial drug constitutes currently the only viable treatment option to safely reduce microfilaraemia to a level that allows safe use of sequential therapy with another drug. The aim of this clinical trial was therefore to evaluate three alternative fixed treatment regimens for their efficacy to reduce microfilaraemia of 