On Saturday, October 10, USAID and staff from the Neglected Tropical Disease Support Center (NTD-SC) at the Task Force for Global Health (TFGH) had a virtual end-of-study celebration Zoom call with the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka, to commemorate their completion of treatment and follow up of their patients in the LEDoxy study. This multicentre study aims to evaluate the usefulness of additional doxycycline treatment in the clinical management of moderate lymphedema, comparing it against the standard-of-care (limb hygiene) alone. Work on the study design began in 2016, and patient enrollment was initiated in Sri Lanka, Mali and India in 2018/9 with USAID funding administered through the Task Force.  Over the next few months the Sri Lanka data will be cleaned before unblinding the study to analyze the impact. The study site in Mali will complete its observations at the end of this year and that in Kerala, India, will see their last patient in June 2021.

Eric Ottesen, M.D., Advisor, NTD-SC, and Joe Shott, Public Health Advisor, USAID, joined others from the TFGH in congratulating the Sri Lankan team and giving certain individuals special recognition. "It is really amazing what we have been able to do without an "NIH style" clinical trial workforce and a large monetary contribution. We will continue to collaborate with the university in future OR endeavours," said Shott.