Mass Medications

Sometimes the prevalence of an infectious disease in a population can be so high that medicating everyone, whether infected or not, may be the most effective means to combat its spread. Such an approach has been adopted to prevent malaria outbreaks, and now researchers have applied the concept to tackle scabies on a remote Fijian island. Before the treatment trial, approximately one third of the island’s population had scabies – a condition wherein tiny mites burrowing into the skin cause intensely itchy bumps (as seen on the person’s feet pictured) and which, if untreated, can lead to severe bacterial infections. Two years after a single treatment (or two treatments a week apart for confirmed scabies cases) the prevalence remains at just 3.6 percent. While treating perfectly healthy people isn’t generally advisable, these results suggest that under certain circumstances mass medication of a population may benefit healthy members in the long run.

Written by Ruth Williams

Ruth Williams

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Ruth is a freelance science journalist based in the US. She's a regular correspondent for The Scientist, and her work has appeared in The Lancet, Nature, Scientific American Mind, BBC Focus and elsewhere. Twitter @rooph

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• Image from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute
• Research from Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Melbourne, VIC, Australia and others
• Image copyright held by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
• Research published in New England Journal of Medicine, June 2019