Haiti Fights Against Gruesome Disease - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.

Lymphatic filariasis is one of the so-called neglected tropical diseases that collectively threaten almost 2 billion people worldwide.

Filariasis is spread by mosquitoes, and is characterized by a permanent inflammation and swelling of an appendage, such as an arm or leg. In men, it can cause the scrotum to swell up. The affliction can be stigmatizing for the people who suffer from it.

In Haiti, efforts are being made to eradicate the parasitic infection through mass drug administration. The Washington Post reports that at the Evelina Levy School for Girls, hundreds of elementary school girls were given a drug cocktail to prevent them from being infected with filariasis later in life. After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, which affected a third of the country’s population, 70 percent of the people in Haiti’s capital city of Port-Au-Prince were administered the medicine in the winter of 2011 and 2012.

Two years after the earthquake, it is estimated that 8 point 7 million Haitians, out of approximately 10 million, have been given the preventative medicine.