A group of music students will hold a benefit concert 8 p.m., Saturday at Nassau Presbyterian Church. The proceeds will go to The United Front Against River Blindness, run by a Lawrence resident, that helps bring needed medicine to at-risk populations in Africa.
By:Jennifer Potash Managing Editor
In an African home, guests are welcome any time of day and the head of household will often give up his bed to provide comfort for his guests, said Daniel Shungu of Carnation Place in Lawrence.
This philosophy seems to guide Dr. Shungu, a retired Merck pharmaceutical employee, who now runs a nonprofit, The United Front Against River Blindness, a foundation dedicated to supplying at-risk African populations with a vital drug to cure the devastating disease onchocherciasis, known as river blindness.
The fundraisers and trips to his native Democratic Republic of Congo in central Africa to get the drug to remote villages is a akin to opening his home to house guests.
"I believe I should share the great blessings I have had in my life, with others," said Dr. Shungu.
He will be aided in his efforts on Saturday as a group of Hopewell area music students host a benefit concert at Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton Borough. The one-hour concert starts at 8 p.m.
Born in the Congo, then under colonial occupation by Belgium, Dr. Shungu, 62, arrived in the United States as a teenager on a high school exchange program sponsored by the Methodist church. The son of a Methodist bishop, and one of 13 children, said he fell in love with the U.S. during that year in Homer, N.Y.
Political unrest in the Congo, which later changed its name to Zaire following the end of the colonial occupation, led Dr. Shungu to remain in the United States.
He earned his undergraduate degree from Albion College in Albion, Mich. He also received a master’s degree in bacteriology from Wayne State University in Detroit and a Ph.D. in medical microbiology from the University of Maryland. He completed postgraduate fellowships in infectious disease microbiology at Temple and Duke universities.
Until his retirement in 2003, Dr. Shungu spent 22 years at Merck Co. where he was most recently the founder and manager of a special research microbiology laboratory that focused on testing new antibiotic drugs.
He married Lawrence resident Denise Holmes, who did a Peace Corps tour in Zaire in the 1970s. Ms. Holmes now lives in North Carolina.
The couple have two grown sons, Nick, who is attending Duke University on a full academic scholarship and is spending the summer working in a medical clinic in South Africa, and Peter, a Tufts University graduating now working in community development in Boston.
After Peter Shungu received his scholarship, Dr. Shungu said without the hefty college bills, he had an opportunity to realize his dream of helping out his former countrymen in the Congo.
In 2003, Dr. Shungu organized a trip the Congo and met with the country’s health minister in Kinshasa, the capital city.
"I have been so blessed and I want to help and give something back," Dr. Shungu said.
The minister of health seized upon the offer "and without hesitating he said ‘river blindness,’" Dr. Shungu said of the meeting in 2003.
River blindness is transmitted through the bite of a tiny black fly that breeds along the banks of fast-flowing rivers. The microscopic, infective larvae transmitted from the flies, mature under the skin into adult worms, forming visible nodules on the body, he said. The worms produce millions of mircofilariae, which cause the disease during their 10- to 15-year life span.
A person afflicted with river blindness may experience severe itching, thickening and depigmentation of the skin followed by irreversible blindness, Dr. Shungu said.
"The itching is so severe that people have killed themselves because of it," Dr. Shungu said.
Dr. Shungu said of the Congo’s estimated population of 60 million people, about 21 million are at risk for the disease and 7 million are currently infected.
"It is not unusual for villages to have 90 percent of the adults with river blindness," Dr. Shungu said.
The river is a focal center of life in the Congo for bathing, doing laundry, collecting water for cooking and drinking, Dr. Shungu said. It is not uncommon for the majority of the adults in villages to be blind, which has a devastating effect on the economic status of the community, he said.
During a recent trip to the Congo, Dr. Shungu snapped a photo of four men walking in a line, each holding the end of a stick, with a small child leading the caravan through the village. The adults were all blinded from the disease and unable to find work, he said, And the young boy, instead of attending school, had to lead them. Dr. Shungu said.
Efforts in the 1970s and 1980s to kill the worms in the river directly with pesticides was discontinued owing to the toxic effects of the chemicals, he said.
Other medical treatments, including attempts to surgically remove the worms, are not feasible in a country that lacks the proper medical facilities outside of the larger cities, Dr. Shungu said.
The medical treatment that is making a difference in the lives of the Congolese and other African countries is the drug invermectin, marketed as Mectizan, created by Merck & Co., the Whitehouse Station-based international pharmaceutical company.
The drug, which must be administered yearly, prevents the parasites from reproducing and thus spreading to the eyes, he said.
Mectizan has helped to greatly reduce river blindness in other African counties, he said.
Merck provides the medicine for free and last year donated $1 million to help get the drug to people who need it, Dr. Shungu said. The World Health Organization (WHO) has committed to funding 75 percent of the costs to get the drug to the affected areas, Dr. Shungu said.
The reamingremaining 25 percent must be raised from nongovermental organizations (NGO), such as his foundation.
Dr. Shungu’s foundation covers the Kasongo region in the southeastern portion of the Congo. The costs Dr. Shungu’s foundation covers are for transportation motor bikes and canoes. Many of the villages are far from regional centers tend to lack passable roads for trucks.
"We have the drug but it can be very difficult to get to the more remote places," he said. "That is the dilemma."
Dr. Shungu, on his most recent trip, took a photo of a makeshift bridge across a fast-flowing stream. The bridge comprised four tree trunks stripped of bark.
"We got out of the Land Cruiser and walked behind it and the driver drove across the bridge," he said with a laugh.
The WHO works with the local leaders and village chiefs to handle the distribution of the drugs and keep track of the statistics, he said.
"It works very well as there are over 200 dialects spoken in the Congo," Dr. Shungu said.
With plans in place to go to the Congo in the fall, Dr. Shungu needs to raise $15,000 remaining on his commitment of about $38,000.
His former employer has agreed to match dollar for dollar what Dr. Shungu raises.
But the doctor must still come up with the funds and has spoken at churches and other civic organizations.
Enter Stephanie Chapin, 17, of Pennington who led the benefit concert effort for the Dr. Shungu’s foundation. Stephanie wanted her last piano recital to have more meaning than simply an occasion to showcase her skills. Stephanie, who will attend Brandeis University in the fall and would like to become a psychology major and work with trauma victims, wanted the event to benefit a worthy cause.
"I decided if I was going to have a senior recital, why not do some good," Stephanie said.
Deborah Tannor, Stephanie’s piano teacher, suggested Dr. Shungu’s foundation as the beneficiary for the concert. Ms. Tannor read about Dr. Shungu’s efforts in a Nassau Presbyterian church bulletin.
Quickly the events were set in motion for Saturday’s concert. Stephanie said she plans to play works from her repertoire that will be familiar to a wider audience. She also recruited fellow students to perform with her at the hourlong concert. Dr. Shungu, praised Stephanie and her colleagues for generously donating their time to help him.
The recital begins at 8 p.m. and the suggested donation is $5.
Nassau Presbyterian Church is located at 61 Nassau St. in Princeton Borough.
For more information about Dr. Shungu’s foundation, visit the Web site at www.riverblindness.org/ufar.html.