HEALTH: WHO Launches Campaign against Blindness-Causing Trachoma

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Nov 26 1996 (IPS) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced Tuesday that it would coordinate an international effort against trachoma, the contagious disease responsible for at least 15 percent of all cases of blindness.

Governments, international and non-governmental organisations will take part in the programme. The illness is the cause of roughly six million cases of irreversible blindness in the world today, and there are currently some 146 million people in need of urgent treatment to prevent the loss of eyesight.

The hardest-hit areas are impoverished rural parts of several Central and South American countries, most African nations and some areas of the Middle East. Trachoma is also endemic in several Asian countries. The WHO report states that up-to-date information is unavailable for a number of populated nations, including India and China.

WHO will coordinate epidemiological evaluations, the drawing up of maps of the illness, follow-up and monitoring of the disease, project evaluation and mobilisation of funds.

The programme will implement the so-called “SAFE” strategy aimed at community involvement in improving hygiene, and including corrective surgery for trichiasis — a turning inward of the eyelashes — and the provision of antibiotics.

The international effort was decided on Tuesday at the last day of a meeting sponsored by the WHO Programme for Prevention of Blindness and Deafness. The meeting was attended by representatives of international development organisations and members of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and the philanthropic division of Pfizer International laboratories.

Pfizer International has come up with azitromicine, a new prolonged-effect antibiotic that can be used to fight trachoma. According to a WHO report, the drug could replace tetracycline ophthalmic ointment that is currently used to treat trachoma, but which has not met with total acceptance in community programmes.

Tests carried out with the new antibiotic in a number of countries have been encouraging. One single annual dosage could stave off the threat of blindness posed by trachoma. Morocco, which is making an all-out effort to eliminate the disease as a cause of blindness by the year 2000, is the first country where the new drug has been widely used.

Trachoma is one of the oldest-known infectious diseases, which can be tracked back several thousands of years. The first documented cases were reported in the age of the Egyptian pharaohs.

The illness crops up in poor, overcrowded areas lacking hygienic conditions, clean drinking water and sewage services. Although specific efforts and general improvement in the socioeconomic status of affected populations have met with some success in eradicating the problem, the disease remains a significant public health threat in many less developed countries.