Effectiveness of annual single doses of diethylcarbamazine citrate among bancroftian filariasis infected individuals in an endemic area under mass drug administration in Brazil.

The Global Program to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis has achieved extraordinary success in reducing transmission and preventing morbidity through mass drug administration (MDA) to the population at-risk. Brazil is the only currently using diethylcarbamazine citrate (DEC) alone for MDA, so an assessment of its effectiveness is needed. We report the trends of filarial markers in a cohort of 175 individuals infected with Wuchereria bancrofti in areas that underwent MDA in the city of Olinda, Northeastern Brazil.