The Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Indonesia, contributed to Indonesia’s post-MDA filariasis surveillance efforts by serving as a training centre for hands-on laboratory training in October 2025. The programme brought together health staff from 19 districts to strengthen quality assurance and diagnostic readiness for ongoing surveillance activities. Through practical microscopy-based training, the initiative helped reinforce laboratory capacity and support early detection of any possible resurgence as districts move into the post-MDA phase.

Full WHO news coverage is available here: https://www.who.int/indonesia/news/detail/23-02-2026-building-lasting-protection-against-filariasis-across-indonesia

For Prof. Taniawati Supali and the Helmire team at the Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Indonesia, the return to Alor was more than a scientific survey. It was a return to a place that had once carried a heavy burden of lymphatic filariasis, when many residents lived with severe swelling, pain, and stigma caused by parasitic worms. More than two decades after the first field visits, Prof. Taniawati stood again beside longtime collaborators from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, not only as a researcher, but as an Indonesian partner who had walked this journey with local communities from the beginning. Together, they came back with one urgent question: had the disease truly disappeared?