Legesse Wolde-Yohannes References Navigation menu"Legesse Wolde-Yohannes (Ethiopia)"the original
Living peopleEthiopian scientistsRight Livelihood Award laureatesHorticulturists and gardeners horticulturalAklilu LemmaendodbilharziaRight Livelihood Award Legesse Wolde-Yohannes is an Ethiopian horticultural scientist. He cooperated with Aklilu Lemma on the discovery and research on how to use the plant endod as a means of preventing the parasitic disease bilharzia. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1989, jointly with Lemma. [1] Bilharzia, or schistosomiasis, is a debilitating and eventually fatal illness, which afflicts more than 200 million people in 74 countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Present therapies for bilharzia, and molluscicides to kill the snail-carriers of the disease, are far too expensive for the communities that need them. In 1964 a young Ethiopian doctor, Aklilu Lemma, discovered that suds from the fruit of a common African plant, the endod or soapberry, which African women have used as soap for centuries, act as a potent molluscicide. To foll...