What you should know about this indicator
- Lymphatic filariasis is a painful and profoundly disfiguring disease caused by a parasitic worm transmitted to humans through the bites of infected mosquitoes. It causes damage to the lymphatic system, fever and pain and can lead to swelling of the limbs and genitals, which often results in permanent disability and social stigma.
- Lymphatic filariasis is most common in tropical and subtropical regions of the world, especially in poor communities without adequate protection from mosquito bites. It is classified as a neglected tropical disease (NTD) by the World Health Organization (WHO).
- The WHO recommends preventive chemotherapy for lymphatic filariasis, which means administrating safe and effective drugs to at-risk populations, regardless of whether individuals are infected or not.
- This data shows the number of people who require preventive chemotherapy for lymphatic filariasis. Not everyone who requires preventive chemotherapy is receiving it — we show the percentage of the at-risk population who are receiving preventive chemotherapy in our chart on national coverage.
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Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
How we process data at Our World in Data
All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.
At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: Number of people requiring preventive treatment for lymphatic filariasis”, part of the following publication: Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser (2016) - “Global Health”. Data adapted from World Health Organization. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260706-181727/grapher/population-requiring-preventive-treatment-for-lymphatic-filariasis.html [online resource] (archived on July 6, 2026).How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
World Health Organization (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in DataFull citation
World Health Organization (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Number of people requiring preventive treatment for lymphatic filariasis” [dataset]. World Health Organization, “Preventive Chemotherapy (PC) Data Portal - Lymphatic filariasis” [original data]. Retrieved July 20, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260706-181727/grapher/population-requiring-preventive-treatment-for-lymphatic-filariasis.html (archived on July 6, 2026).Download
Quick download
Download the data shown in this chart as a ZIP file containing a CSV file, metadata in JSON format, and a README. The CSV file can be opened in Excel, Google Sheets, and other data analysis tools.
Data API
Use these URLs to programmatically access this chart's data and configure your requests with the options below. Our documentation provides more information on how to use the API, and you can find a few code examples below.
Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-requiring-preventive-treatment-for-lymphatic-filariasis.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=falseMetadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-requiring-preventive-treatment-for-lymphatic-filariasis.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=falseExcel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-requiring-preventive-treatment-for-lymphatic-filariasis.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests
# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-requiring-preventive-treatment-for-lymphatic-filariasis.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})
# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-requiring-preventive-treatment-for-lymphatic-filariasis.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()R
library(jsonlite)
# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-requiring-preventive-treatment-for-lymphatic-filariasis.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-requiring-preventive-treatment-for-lymphatic-filariasis.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-requiring-preventive-treatment-for-lymphatic-filariasis.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear