“Australia has eliminated trachoma as a public health problem. While the disease was already rare in most of the country, it remained endemic in some remote indigenous communities until recently,” reports The Doomslayer.
“The World Health Organization (WHO) has validated Australia for eliminating trachoma as a public health problem…Trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, no longer represents a public health problem in the country. Australia is among a growing number of countries that have successfully eliminated trachoma. Trachoma is caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis and spreads through close contact with infected individuals, contaminated surfaces, and flies that carry eye and nose discharge. Repeated infections can lead to scarring of the eyelids, turning eyelashes inward, and ultimately causing blindness if untreated….Australia’s achievement reflects decades of targeted public health action, particularly in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, where trachoma persisted despite its earlier disappearance from the rest of the country,” the WHO says.
Australia still has some other diseases disproportionately found in the tropics, such as Buruli ulcer, leprosy and scabies.
The world’s second poorest country also managed to get rid of trachoma. “Other countries validated by WHO as having eliminated trachoma as a public health problem are: Algeria, Benin, Burundi, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, India, Iraq, Islamic Republic of Iran, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Togo, Vanuatu and Viet Nam.”
But 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.
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.
Parasites can take years for countries to eradicate. It took nearly 40 years for the world to largely eradicate Guinea worms, nasty parasites that caused tens of millions of people to scream with unbearable pain. But by 2023, Guinea worms had been eradicated in at least 17 countries, and “no guinea worm was reported” in 2024.
Guinea worms used to inflict burning pain on millions of people in Africa and South Asia every year. They would grow up to 3 feet long while living inside a person’s body, then burst out of their foot or other sensitive areas of their anatomy, such as their eyeball or their penis.
“With a guinea worm infection, you get a gross open wound from which the worm emerges over a period of weeks to months with extreme painfulness. There were millions of cases in the 80s, and now there are none. Incredible human progress.”
“It’s possible that the worm is evolutionarily adapted to cause prolonged pain and suffering. Since this will increase the chance that the host will put their foot in the water to soothe the pain, and that can help the worm get to the next stage in its life cycle,” notes a scientist.
“When The Carter Center began leading the international campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease in 1986, there were an estimated 3.5 million cases in at least 21 countries in Africa and Asia. Today, that number has been reduced by more than 99.99%.”
