More than 150 onchocerciasis partners, including national onchocerciasis coordinators from health ministries of endemic and formerly endemic countries, national onchocerciasis elimination committee chairs, experts, researchers, nongovernmental organizations, the donor community and civil society gathered on 1–2 November 2023 in Saly Mbour, Senegal, for the first meeting of the newly established Global Onchocerciasis Network for Elimination (GONE) whose goal is to strengthen collaboration among countries and partners.
The meeting provided an opportunity for GONE stakeholders to review, discuss and endorse the terms of reference of the network, to highlight the progress made by various countries towards eliminating onchocerciasis, and to explore new opportunities for partnerships to support initiatives aimed at accelerating the global elimination of onchocerciasis. To this end, the various speakers emphasized the importance of public–private partnerships in mobilizing funding to cover all programmatic areas to reach the elimination targets. The meeting served also as a platform for participants to enhance global and regional collaboration by sharing knowledge, lessons learnt and best practices among countries and partners. Specific working groups were set up during the conference to identify challenges and discuss solutions to accelerate elimination.
The meeting was conducted in plenary and breakout sessions. The plenary sessions heard presentations on the main achievements, gaps and challenges of endemic countries and the way towards achieving the 2030 road map targets for onchocerciasis elimination as well as updates from the Mectizan Expert Committee. The technical session provided updates on diagnostics, post-verification surveillance, research and development, and business case scenarios for new tools and the management of onchocerciasis-associated epilepsy.
Participants divided into small working groups during the four breakout sessions (on the terms of reference of GONE; mapping, monitoring and evaluation of access and logistics; entomology; and cross-border collaboration) where participants discussed their feedback and preparatory work on the guiding questions. At the end of the first breakout session, the GONE terms of reference were endorsed by more than 90% of the participants.
The meeting closed with statements from a high-level panel of representatives of key constituencies and the Minister of Health and Social Action of the Government of Senegal.