About Us

The Center for Onchocerciasis Diagnostics Research Laboratory is dedicated to supporting river blindness elimination programs. Our mission is to provide quality diagnostic reagents, supplies, technical support, and training to improve the global health initiatives for onchocerciasis elimination in Africa and Latin America. We are committed to public health advocacy that makes a difference in the lives of those affected by onchocerciasis.

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The Center for Onchocerciasis Diagnostics was established in 2018. The Center's establishment is a culmination of over 25 years of collaboration between the laboratory of Dr. Thomas Unnasch at the University of South Florida College of Public Health and various laboratories supported by international agencies and programs; the Onchocerciasis Control Programme in West Africa, the Onchocerciasis Elimination Programme for the Americas (OEPA), the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control, The Carter Center River Blindness Elimination Program and the WHO Expanded Special Programme for the Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases. As well as various collaborations involving the Mectizan Donation Programme (MDP), The END Fund, Sightsavers and other laboratory support agencies across the globe, all in the effort to eliminate onchocerciasis.

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The overreaching goals of the Center for Onchocerciasis Diagnostics are:

• To provide advice in obtaining essential assay specific reagents to endemic laboratories involved in onchocerciasis elimination.

• To provide quality control and quality assurance activities to participating laboratories.

• To provide training as needed in the techniques needed to verify onchocerciasis elimination.

• To provide technical assistance to participating laboratories as needed.

 

The Center for Onchocerciasis Diagnostics provides critical testing reagents (Ov16 antigen, O-150 PCR freeze dried reaction mixes) to laboratories involved in onchocerciasis elimination. We have provided Ov16 antigen and freeze-dried PCR reaction mixtures to national and international laboratories involved in onchocerciasis surveillance. We have provided our support to Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Togo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, the ESPEN laboratory in Burkina Faso, and the OEPA supported laboratories in Latin America. 

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Our services have expanded in 2024 and 2025 to include providing much-needed reagents to additional countries, including Mali, Malawi, Cote d'Ivoire, Niger, and Mozambique. We expect to expand our support to other regions affected by onchocerciasis in the coming years in hopes of assisting in the onchocerciasis "Reaching the Last Mile" efforts.

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These procurement services, reagents, and training techniques will support all phases of testing throughout elimination efforts and post elimination surveillance.

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In effort to provide tools for Onchocerciasis testing, we created open access to laboratory manuals and SOPs for Ov16 ELISA and O150 PCR-ELISA, as well as Quality Control and Assurance documents. These documents are located under the Training and Educational Materials tab. We will also be continuing our efforts to increase program lab capacity building through video tutorials and training modules.

 

Our Center has also developed Quality Control kits and Proficiency Testing kits for both the Ov16 ELISA and the O150 PCR-ELISA which includes laboratory and personnel certification. It is highly recommended that onchocerciasis elimination laboratories perform this proficiency testing and certification prior to testing Dried blood spots (DBS) obtained from the population and/or prior to testing vector collections. Further recommendations are to complete the QA/QC proficiency kits and recertifications annually. Participating labs can request these QA/QC proficiency kits at no charge. Please refer to the contact information if you have any questions or need to reach us for further support.