By Diane Weatherup | Development Director
Trachoma is the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness and one of 17 neglected tropical diseases that affect over one billion of the world’s poorest people. The disease is transmitted through contact with eye discharge from an infected person, via contaminated objects like towels, handkerchiefs, fingers and, in some cases, eye-seeking flies.
The disease is endemic in 51 countries and thrives in isolated rural communities where people live with limited access to water, sanitation, and healthcare. Data from Ethiopia’s 2005- 2006 National Survey on Blindness, Low Vision, and Trachoma indicates that Ethiopia is the most trachoma-endemic country in the world, carrying around 30% of the trachoma burden in Africa.
To address the trachoma burden, the World Health Organisation Alliance for the Global Elimination of Blinding Trachoma by the year 2020 (GET 2020 Alliance) advocates for the adoption of a comprehensive treatment and prevention strategy called the SAFE strategy. The SAFE strategy includes four components: surgery to reverse in-turned eyelashes, antibiotic treatment, facial cleanliness, and environmental improvement (SAFE).
Facial cleanliness and improved sanitation are the prevention-focused components of the SAFE strategy which aim to minimise the spread of infection to others. These components require access to safe water sources and sanitation.
All four components of the SAFE strategy are essential to preventing, treating, and eliminating trachoma. One element alone will not suffice.
Over the past few years, Orbis has increased its efforts to strengthen the facial cleanliness and environmental improvement components of the SAFE strategy, recognising their key role in achieving and sustaining elimination.
The challenge of eliminating blinding trachoma in Ethiopia by the year 2020 is daunting, but Orbis, along with their partners, show how country leadership can support the integrated approach needed to strengthen trachoma elimination efforts.
Orbis is working with the Federal Ministry of Health in Ethiopia to make sure the right people and partners are engaged in order to provide education surrounding facial cleanliness and, more difficulty, improvements in access to water and good sanitation.
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