“According to the World Health Organization, the number of people at risk of contracting trachoma, a bacterial eye infection, fell to 97 million in late 2025, down from 1.5 billion in 2002.”
Recently, Egypt and Fiji “eliminated trachoma as a public health problem,” the latest of 27 countries.
“The 27 countries validated by WHO as having eliminated trachoma as a public health problem to date are Benin, Burundi, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, India, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Togo, Vanuatu, and Viet Nam.”
Scientists have come up with a cure for whipworm infections, which afflict 300 million people.
Last year, a treatment was discovered for sleeping sickness, a disease that kills 50,000 to 500,000 people in Africa each year. Sleeping sickness is an awful disease that begins with fever and aches. Then things get worse. The parasite that causes the disease will disrupt sleeping patterns and cause aggressiveness and psychosis. The death rate from sleeping sickness is close to 100%, if it is untreated.
Last year, a blood test was developed that detects many brain cancers that doctors previously couldn’t detect until it is too late to save most victims. Despite advances in fighting other kinds of cancer, “brain tumors have remained notoriously difficult to diagnose. They affect hundreds of thousands of people worldwide each year, and kill more children and adults under the age of 40 … than any other cancer.”
A new cancer vaccine for dogs nearly doubles their survival rates for certain kinds of cancer. This is significant, because similar vaccines might be developed for humans in the future.
A new blood test can detect which bowel cancer patients can receive a lifesaving immunotherapy rather than chemotherapy, enabling them to be cancer free after surgery. Around 10-15% of patients with stage two or three bowel cancer have a particular genetic make-up that enables them to benefit from the life-saving immunotherapy known as pembrolizumab.
Malaria vaccines are saving thousands of lives in Africa.
