The Carter Center
Dr. Richards is an expert in parasitic and tropical diseases, who has worked extensively in Latin America and Africa. His professional interest is in the safe and effective delivery of available tools to control or eliminate tropical infectious diseases. The health programs he directs at The Carter Center have helped ministries of health and local communities to provide more than 200 million preventive chemotherapy treatments for parasitic disease in 11 countries. The malaria program has helped provide nearly 15 million insecticide-treated bed nets in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Hispaniola.
Dr. Richards came to The Carter Center from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where he spent 23 years in the Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria. Over the course of his career he has worked and published on schistosomiasis, Guinea worm, lymphatic filariasis, cysticercosis, andmalaria. Dr. Richards' particular expertise is mass ivermectin administration programs for onchocerciasis (river blindness). He has been involved in the Guatemalan ivermectin distribution program since 1987 and in the Nigerian ivermectin distribution program since 1992. He participated in the launching and operation of two major regional river blindness programs: the Onchocerciasis Elimination Program for the Americas(OEPA – launched in 1992), which reaches six countries in the Americas, and the African Program for Onchocerciasis Control (launched in 1996), reaching 31 countries in Africa. Dr. Richards currently chairs the Program Coordinating Committee for OEPA; the Nongovernmental Development Organization Coordinating Group for Onchocerciasis Elimination; and the ASTMH Archives Committee. He also serves on the Executive Group of the Global Alliance for the Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis, the WHO Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), and several other technical advisory boards for NTDs and malaria.