World’s second poorest country is eliminating the blinding disease of trachoma

The incredibly poor country of “Burundi has eliminated trachoma as a public health problem, bringing prevalence of the blindness-causing disease below 0.2 percent in adults,” reports The Doomslayer. Burundi is a landlocked nation in East Africa.

The WHO adds:

The World Health Organization (WHO) has validated Burundi as having eliminated trachoma as a public health problem, making it the eighth country in WHO’s African Region to reach this important milestone…

Trachoma is caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis and spreads through personal contact, contaminated surfaces and by flies that have been in contact with eye or nose discharge. Repeated infections can lead to scarring, in-turning of the eyelids, and ultimately blindness. Globally, the disease remains endemic in many vulnerable communities where access to clean water and sanitation is limited….

Trachoma remains a public health problem in 32 countries with an estimated 103 million people living in areas requiring interventions against the disease. Trachoma is found mainly in the poorest and most rural areas of Africa, Central and South America, Asia, the Western Pacific and the Middle East.

The African Region is disproportionately affected by trachoma with 93 million people living in at-risk areas in April 2024, representing 90% of the global trachoma burden. Significant progress has been made in the fight against trachoma over the past few years and the number of people requiring antibiotic treatment for trachoma in the African Region fell by 96 million from 189 million in 2014 to 93 million as of April 2024, representing a 51% reduction.

Vaccination has cut child deaths by two thirds in Burundi, which is the second poorest country on Earth in terms of annual income. People in Burundi have a per capita income of about $1,000, compared to $89,000 in the United States. (That $1,000 takes into account cheaper living costs in Burundi. If you don’t adjust for living costs, people in Burundi have an even lower per capita income of about $500).

Trachoma persists in Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, South Sudan, United Republic of Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

But the disease of trachoma has been banished from all but three of the districts in Zimbabwe. In 2023, Iraq eliminated trachoma.

In other good news, the African nation of Guinea recently eradicated sleeping sickness, a parasitic disease carried by the tsetse fly that causes irreversible brain damage, aggressiveness, psychosis, and then death, if left untreated.

Niger recently became the first nation in Africa to eliminate river blindness, a disease spread by flies that breed near rivers. Those flies carry long thin parasitic worms that burrow in a victim’s skin.