While medications currently exist to
treat lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis, the two main diseases caused by filarial nematodes, the drugs are insufficient to eliminate the diseases by 2020 and researchers project that resistance will arise to some of the drugs.
On Monday, the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to William Campbell of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, and AAAS member Satoshi Ōmura of Kitasato University in Tokyo, who will share half the prize for discovering the drug avermectin, which has been used to
treat river blindness and
lymphatic filariasis as well as other parasitic diseases.