Clarke Cares, Carter Center Stop ‘Forgotten Disease of Forgotten People’

April 18, 2025
Scott Pemberton

More than 100,000 highly effective and durable mosquito nets provided by the Clarke Cares Foundation have contributed to stopping the transmission of lymphatic filariasis (LF) in the two Nigerian states of Plateau and Nasarawa, The Carter Center announced on June 13.

The foundation’s Net for Net Project combined with drugs provided by Merck and GlazoSmithKline to halt the spread by mosquitoes of parasites that cause LF in the two Nigerian states. The achievement offers hope that LF can be eliminated from the rest of Nigeria.

In the Spring of 2011, the foundation ( www.clarkecares.org ) began working with The Carter Center, established by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, to launch the ambitious bed-mosquito-net replacement program. Millions of people in Nigeria suffer and die from two mosquito-borne diseases lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis) and malaria.  The nets also offer protection against malaria.

Clarke matches “net for net” donations made to the foundation. A donation of $10, for example, sends four mosquito bed nets to Nigeria.

Reviewed and recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), Clarke DuraNets are among the most durable mosquito nets available, providing up to five years of continuous protection even after washings.

Worldwide, 120 million people are infected with lymphatic filariasis and 1.1 billion are at risk of infection. In its severest form, LF leads to elephantiasis, a crippling condition in which the limbs often are grotesquely swollen or enlarged. LF is known as a “forgotten disease of forgotten people.”

A longtime Productive Strategies client, Clarke is the premier provider of mosquito control services. The company’s organic larvacide product, Natular, won the U.S. EPA 2010 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award. The company’s innovative products have stemmed outbreaks of devastating diseases both in the U.S. and worldwide.

The Clarke Cares Foundation’s annual charity golf outing is scheduled for September 12 in Oak Brook, Illinois. Details are at  www.clarkecares.org.

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