Category Archives: Vision

A Global Strategy to Eliminate Blinding Trachoma, A Disease Targeted by END7

Blindness, NTDs, Trachoma, Vision, , , , , ,

By: Elizabeth Kurylo, Communications manager, International Trachoma Initiative

Eliminating a disease is no small task. It helps to have a detailed plan. Partners working to eliminate blinding trachoma, one of the seven neglected tropical diseases targeted by , have such a plan. It’s called 2020 INSight: The End in Sight.

Produced by the International Coalition for Trachoma Control (ICTC), 2020 INSight is a global strategic plan with crucial next steps toward trachoma elimination by 2020.More than 2 million people are either blind or suffer excruciating pain because of trachoma. It makes one person experience severe sight loss every four minutes and blinds four people every hour.  Over 4.6 million are in the final, painful stages of this eye disease and require surgery to prevent them from going blind. It is endemic in at least 59 countries, in areas with limited access to water and sanitation.

A coordinated effort by governments, nongovernmental organizations, donors and other stakeholders is urgently needed to achieve the goal. Crucial next steps include the following:

  • Survey districts where trachoma is suspected to be endemic, so intervention can begin;
  • Dramatically improve access to clean water and latrines;
  • Increase global funding for trachoma control, including implementation of the SAFE strategy (Surgery, Antibiotics, Facial cleanliness, Environmental improvement);
  • Train teachers and other community leaders about facial cleanliness and better hygiene so they can spread the message in their communities;
  • Quickly address the backlog of 4.6 million people who need surgery to prevent blindness;
  • Identify support for more mass drug administration (MDA) programs to provide about 380 million more antibiotic treatments.

More than 80 percent of the burden of active trachoma is concentrated in 14 countries, where immediate action is needed. Eliminating the disease in Africa alone would boost the continent’s gross domestic product (GDP) 20-30 percentage points based on conservative annual productivity loss estimates.

Since 1998, Pfizer Inc has donated more than 225 million doses of the antibiotic Zithromax® to treat and prevent blinding trachoma. The International Trachoma Initiative (ITI) manages the distribution of the medicine.

Get your copy of 2020 INSight at the ICTC website.

 

Good News on River Blindness

Blindness, Latin America and the Caribbean, NTDs, Onchocerciasis, Vision, , , ,

By: Alanna Shaikh

Mexico, Colombia, and Guatemala are making huge progress against river blindness, aka onchocerciasis. Colombia has eliminated river blindness from within its borders, the first country in Latin America to do so. Mexico and Guatemala have broken the cycle of transmission, and they’re ready to stop mass drug administration next year.

Elimination is a pretty clear term. It means that the disease, while still present on our planet, is down to zero in one particular region; in this case, Colombia. But what does it mean to break the cycle of transmission? Well, onchocerciasis is a tiny parasitic worm[1] that has a pretty complicated life cycle, and one particular kind of fly is essential to the survival of the disease. Without those flies, the disease is not transmitted and dies out.

Photo Credit: The Carter Center

To break the cycle of transmission, you spray insecticide in the areas of fast moving rivers where the flies breed. No more flies, no more onchocerciasis. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it takes fourteen years of spraying to totally eliminate the reservoir of adult onchocerciasis worms and therefore make sure that the disease is gone. Once you’ve reached that point, it takes three more years of close monitoring to ensure that the disease really is gone. If there really are no cases in those three years, then, like Colombia, your country can be certified as having eliminated the disease. Continue reading →

More from World Sight Day!

Blindness, Trachoma, Vision, Preventable Blindness, , world sight day

Happy Monday readers! We’d like to draw attention to some interesting pick up from last week’s World Sight Day:

Is the end in Sight for Trachoma?
Simon Bush, Director of African Alliances and Advocacy at Sightsavers, authored an op-ed for The Huffington Post, United Kingdom. Trachoma and the WHO approved SAFE strategy for eliminating the disease are both mentioned in the op-ed.

Eye camp to mark World Sight Day
The eyes of 350 people were checked as part of an eye check-up camp held on Saturday and Sunday to mark World Sight Day. Published in the Times of India.

World Sight Day: A See Change
The Huffington Post highlights World Sight Day.


Featured video from TOMSshoes on World Sight Day.

More Frightening Than Lions

MDA, Vision, , ,
Reprinted with permission from HKI’s Seeds of Sight blog.
Doug Steinberg goes to a village in Niger that has eliminated the threat of River Blindness thanks to mass drug distribution.
Doug Steinberg with Kalifa Doumbia, a community distributor v2

Doug Steinberg, HKI’s Deputy Regional Director for West Africa, joins the team traveling with NY Times Journalist, Nicholas Kristof. The picture to the left is Doug with Kalifa Doumbia, a community distributor of the drug, Ivermectin.

The village of Moli is located about 85 miles south of Niger’s capital Niamey on the edge of the W National Park, a wildlife reserve with big game, small creatures and a variety of bird-life. The area lies west of the Niger River, with many tributaries flowing through it. These streams dry up in the long, dry season, but they come to life in the rainy season, which is just beginning. Among the life is the black fly, a vector for Onchocerciasis (river blindness).

I just joined the HKI group traveling with Nick Kristof and the two “Win-a-Trip” winners, and we visited a village where Onchocerciasis control, mainly through distributing the drug Mectizan®, donated by , occurred from 1987 to 1996. The disease is debilitating; micro-filaria (or tiny worms) infest the body, form painful nodes below the skin, and eventually destroy vision. Thanks to the mass drug treatment, Onchocerciasis has been brought under control, and no carriers have been detected since 1992. The young people are free of the disease, although there are a few older folks who suffer from it. One, Natchimou Bagna, now 47, was blinded when he was about 17 years old. Continue reading →