Distributing Medication to Prevent Blindness

Four million people in Ethiopia are blind or visually impaired due to preventable or treatable causes, its health system has insufficient resources to address the need. In addition, Ethiopia has the highest global burden of trachoma, an eye infection that ultimately can lead to irreversible blindness, with 68 million people at risk.

Trachoma is a bacterial infection of the eye which can cause irreversible blindness. Unfortunately trachoma affects many people in impoverished regions of Ethiopia. However, there is an antibiotic, that treats and prevents the disease. Before Covid 19 this antibitoic treatment was carried out in mass community events (known as Mass Drug Administration or MDA), however due to restirctions and safety measueres this was not possible anymore.

Therefore, we changed to a door to door distribution system, where well-protected health teams move from household to household, until the whole population has been treated. This requires more time and more staff than before. Furthermore, we need to supply all teams with PPE, sanitiser and infra-red thermometers so that anyone with a high temperature can be identified and treated accordingly. 

Thanks to your help we were able to implement our adaptations. We continue to carry out MDA, reaching  over 1.4 million people, along with conducting routine treatments, surgeries and the training that is needed to sustain and strengthen eye care services.