The leading infectious cause of blindness is being eradicated in Zimbabwe, despite that African nation’s deep poverty. The disease of trachoma has been banished from all but three of the districts in Zimbabwe:
As a child in Gokwe, a rural town in Zimbabwe’s Midlands, Mary Nyanga, now 43, was anxiously aware of a mysterious but common eye disease that many people in her community talked about as a “spell”. Patients, she recalls, were often confined to their homes, alone, so as not to infect others. Children in her own family had developed the tell-tale itchy eyes, but recovered. In the worst cases, however, people were blinded permanently. Those people often lost “everything”, including their source of income and even their families. “They could not fend for themselves,” Nyanga explains.
Then, in her teens, Nyanga witnessed first-hand how blindness could tear a family apart. Nyanga’s mother complained of itching eyes, but being a grown-up, with things to get done, she endured the nagging pain, rubbing at them intermittently. One day, Nyanga recalls, she called out, “Help me, I can’t see anything, I think I am going blind.” The family sought help for months, but her eyesight could not be restored. Nyanga’s father left, promising to come back when the situation improved. Her sisters eloped, one after the other, getting married early. The family was poor and hungry. “My mother’s blindness resulted in our family falling apart, because many of us, including close family members, failed to accept it,” she said. “After that episode, our family members continued to blame each other for the unfortunate incident, and it further caused more rifts within the family.”
Trachoma is the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness…According to WHO, the condition is a public health problem in 42 countries, and “is responsible for the blindness or visual impairment of about 1.9 million people”. It’s caused by the Chlamydia trachomatis bacterium, which, is spread by the transfer of eye and nose discharge, either on hands, or objects like bedding, or on the bodies of a specific kind of fly, and is most common in young children. In the early stages of infection, it causes inflammation that can resemble conjunctivitis. But the pattern in endemic places, which are usually poor communities, is often one of repetitive and worsening reinfection over years. Eventually, building damage from multiple infections can scar up the inside of the eyelid, such that the eyelid turns inward, and the eyelashes scrub against the eyeball. In time, the complex of injuries to the cornea that this process precipitates can lead to irreversible scarring, which compromises vision.
The African nations of Ethiopia and South Sudan have the highest prevalence of trachoma. It afflicts many people in those countries, mostly women.
Ethiopia has reduced its death rate from tuberculosis, a disease that accounted for about 20% of all deaths in Ethiopia in the 1980s, but now causes only 3% of all deaths in Ethiopia.
Kenyan farmers are using artificial intelligence to produce more food. Zambia used artificial intelligence to find more mineral wealth.
Millions of African people are receiving a life-saving malaria vaccine.
An African free-trade agreement may boost economies harmed by war, floods, and terrorism.
Six of the ten fastest-growing economies are in Africa.
