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Article History

Received: 20 March 2026

Accepted: 30 July 2026

First Online: 4 August 2026

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate: This study is a retrospective descriptive analysis of data routinely collected under the Senegalese National Program for the Elimination of Onchocerciasis (PNLO) as part of its mandated surveillance of MDA impact, including parasitological survey results, entomological surveillance data, and dried blood spot (DBS) samples analyzed by Ov16 IgG4 ELISA. These routine programmatic activities were conducted under the standing ethics clearance held by the national program (National Ethics Committee for Health Research [CNERS], clearance number: 075/MSAS/DGS/DLM), which covers ongoing surveillance and monitoring of the elimination programme. Because this manuscript reports a secondary, retrospective analysis of these routinely and anonymously collected programmatic data, and did not involve new sample collection, new recruitment of participants, or any change to standard care or programmatic procedures, no additional study-specific ethics committee or IRB approval, and no additional informed consent process, was required under Senegal’s applicable national regulations; this is distinct from a formal consent waiver, since individual informed consent for routine programme data collection (e.g., for DBS sampling) was originally obtained, or not required, under the standing programmatic clearance at the time of collection. This study was conducted in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.