By: Alanna Shaikh
Inspired by a trip to Ethiopia with ORBIS, cosmetics maven Jemma Kidd will donate £1.50 for every product purchased to the fight against trachoma. The money will go to ORBIS’s efforts to fight trachoma in Ethiopia, helping to prevent blindness.
Trachoma is not one of those NTDs that you can have for a long time and not know it, not at all. Trachoma is an extremely painful bacterial infection of the eyes. Here, I’ll quote the press release from Jemma Kidd, “Trachoma is a highly contagious bacterial infection of the eyecausing inflamed granulation on the inner surface of the lids. If left untreated, it can turn the eyelid inward, causing the eyelashes to scar the delicate cornea, resulting in agonising pain and permanent blindness.” It makes me cringe just thinking about it. Trachoma spreads rapidly from person to person, through contacts as brief as shaking hands. It’s especially common in kids under five, and can lead to blindness in adulthood.[1]
While 84 million people in 56 countries have trachoma, Ethiopia has the highest concentration of trachoma in the world. Eighty-five percent of its population is at risk for the infection. In the Amhara region of Ethiopia, 62 percent of children have the infection. They won’t all go blind – it takes repeated infections to make that happen – but they are all in pain and at risk. Rates are high because of poverty and poor access to water. When you have to walk for hours and then carry your water home, there may not be enough clean water left for handwashing or keeping your childrens’ faces clean.[2]
You can prevent the transmission of trachoma through hand and face washing, and through environmental hygiene efforts like building latrines, clearing animal waste, and protecting clean water supplies. It can be treated with antibiotics, usually azithromycin.
One of my most deeply held beliefs about global health is that to see real change, we need new ways to bring new money into the sector. Partnerships with private business are one major way to do that. This ORBIS partnership with Jemma Kidd is a perfect example of that kind of success. I especially like the way the company is providing a flat amount per product sold, rather than a percentage of profits. It makes it absolutely clear to consumers exactly what happens when they buy makeup – there’s no mystery about what exactly constitutes profit or anything like that.
It’s also good marketing. Just writing this post reminded me of what nice cosmetics that Jemma Kidd makes, and I’ll probably spend the next half hour at jemmakidd.com.
[1] While it can cause blindness, trachoma is not river blindness. River blindness is onchocerciasis, a differently awful NTD.
[2] It’s easy to get judgmental about hygiene and infection, but stop to think. For the record, I have running water in my own home and I can barely keep my kids’ faces clean. Trying to do it in a rural environment where the only water is what I brought in by hand? I can’t even imagine.
Alanna Shaikh is an expert in health consulting, writing about global health for UN Dispatch and about international relief and development at Blood & Milk. She also serves as a frequently contributing blogger to ‘End the Neglect.’ The views and opinions expressed by guest bloggers are not necessarily the views and opinions of the Global Network. All opinions expressed here are Alanna’s own and not those of any employer or the US government.