***About 20 million people worldwide are • infected by "river blindness." a disease spread by blackflies. Up to half the men in badly affected villages may be sightless. Each case is a personal tragedy, as a Gemini News Service reporter found when she met a fisherman who has been forced to give up his job and resort to begging.

FOR much of the first 55 years of his life. Daouda fished in the nearby streams and rivers to support his family. He used to bring his dally catch to the market, where he would sell It to put other food on the table.

Today, at 60. Daouda has been left blinded by his work and Is forced to beg for his daily meal In the same market in which he once sold his Osh.

Continuously bitten by the black Simulium flies which

infest the areas In which he fished. Daouda says: 1 discovered that my eyesight was fading gradually." Five years ago. he completely lost his vision and. because he could no longer fish, his livelihood.

"I have sought medical attention from a team of personnel that visit here." he says. They told me I have what they called river blindness.

"I don't know whether I will ever regain my sight," adds Daouda, whose wife left him when he went blind.

Daouda Is not alone. Hundreds of men and women living along the rivers of Sierra Leone and elsewhere in West Africa are affected by the disease. Worldwide an estimated 20 million are Infected.

The UK-based Sight Savers organisation says that nearly half the adult male workers in some heavily Infected areas may be blind. Blindness begins at 30 and life expectancy can be reduced by 15 years.

The disease is spread by black flies which lay their eggs In rivers. Bites from the fly deposit larvae in the human skin. The larvae develop into worms which debilitate, disfigure the skin and ultimately cause blindness.

In Gogoima. a village with about 100 inhabitants where thick forests and fertile soil make agriculture the main occupation. about 10 people are stricken with onchocerciasis, the medical term for river blindness.

Local pedple say the disease is becoming Increasingly common here and in surrounding communities. As a result, many villagers, fearing for their eyesight, have moved to new areas, away from the flies. A lot of the younger people have gone even further afield. in search of the excitement offered by bigger communities and bright lights, such as the bauxite mining town of Mokanji.

A huge international effort to control and eradicate onchocerciasis in West Africa was launched in 1974. Joseph Galia, who is the link person in Gogoima for the campaign, says larvicides have been sprayed from aircraft onto fly breeding sites and that an effective medicine, invermectln. Is now widely distributed and has provided some relief from the scourge.

Daouda says the team has visited him several times, doing eye tests and skin-snips.

As well as his blindness, he constantly scratches in a losing battle to ease his itchy skin which is discoloured and covered by small - lumps.

"I have been in this village since I was a little boy when nay parents moved here from another village." he recalls. "When I was mature enough. I choose fishing as a Job and have done It ever since."

He sometimes ventures onto the river again, alone in his boat, to take another chance at fishing. "I used to fish and when I brought in my catch I would sell it to buy other food for my family." he says "Now. I go fishing only so I can have something to eat and don’t have to beg."

In some ways. Daouda seems to have accepted h1s fate But he longs for his days of sight, when he did not have to be led by his son from his old house on the outskirts of the village to seek handouts in the market