Higher‐Dose, More Frequent Treatment ofWuchereria bancrofti

In 1997, the World Health Assembly resolved that human infection with the lymphatic filarial parasite Wuchereria bancrofti—a nematode parasite transmitted by mosquitoes, which causes elephantiasis, disfigurement of the male genitalia, and acute adenolymphangitis in tropical and subtropical Africa, South Asia, the Pacific, and Latin America—could be eradicated using available public health interventions. In response to this resolution, the Global Program for the Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis was organized by the World Health Organization in 2000. The rationale and proposed strategy for geographic local elimination and, ultimately, global eradication of lymphatic filariasis are compelling and straightforward: annual mass administration of single-dose antifilarial drugs aimed at decreasing the reservoir of blood-borne microfilariae in populations in which the parasite is endemic to a level below that necessary for continuing transmission of infective larvae by the local mosquito vectors. On the basis of math-