Happy World Sight Day! In honor of this day, we’re featuring a guest blog post from Simon Bush of SightSavers.
By: Simon Bush, Director of Advocacy and African Alliances at Sightsavers
Trachoma is the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness, affecting an astounding 27.8 million people in Africa alone. According to the International Coalition for Trachoma Control (ICTC), trachoma blinds four people every hour[1]. It is a disease of poverty inextricably linked to a lack of sanitation, which causes repeated eye infections that can lead to blindness if left untreated. It is known as a neglected tropical disease (NTD), meaning that it receives little attention or funding despite its heavy impact on the lives of people suffering from it.
We know from Sightsavers’ work across Africa and Asia, and from the work of other organizations that strategies for controlling blinding NTDs are already proving to be cost effective with a strong record of success, so it seems wrong that a disease like trachoma remains largely ignored and untreated.
This is why today, on World Sight Day, Sightsavers is making the biggest single commitment we have ever made – £62 million ($97.5 million) – to eradicate this terrible disease within the next ten years. We are taking unprecedented steps to ensure that trachoma is eliminated from the 14 African and Asian countries where it is endemic, by 2020.
By treating trachoma, alongside other NTDs such as onchoceriasis and schistosomiasis, we know that we can make a significant difference to people’s lives. Aside from the constant pain of later stage trachoma, called trichaisis, blindness can have a devastating blow on people’s livelihoods in developing countries. As there is often little support available to people living with disabilities in the developing world, they and their families have little chance of ending the cycle that keeps them in poverty, which is why tangible solutions to curing and preventing disability are so important. » Read more: Is the end in sight for trachoma?
