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Malawi first country in southern Africa to eliminate trachoma: WHO

  • Posted By
    10Pointer
  • Categories
    World Affairs
  • Published
    24th Sep, 2022

Context

Malawi has become the first country in southern Africa to eliminate trachoma, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced September 21, 2022.

  • This makes Malawi the fourth country in WHO's Africa region to achieve this milestone after Ghana (June 2018), Gambia (April 2021) and Togo (May 2022).

What is Trachoma?

  • It is a bacterial eye infection that damages the eye lids.
    • Trachoma is one of the Neglected Tropical Diseases.  
  • It causes the eye lashes to turn inwards. 
  • It leads to irreversible vision losses and blindness if not corrected with surgery.
  • Trachoma is caused by bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis.

What causes Trachoma?

  • Trachoma is caused due to poor environmental and personal hygiene. 
  • This mainly occurs when the person faces inadequate access to water and sanitation.

Background

  • The World Health Organisation launched a roadmap of Global Targets to tackle twenty Neglected Tropical Diseases including Trachoma. 
  • The roadmap aims to eliminate all the twenty diseases by 2030.

Trachoma in India

  • India became free from Trachoma in 2017. 
  • According to the National Trachoma Survey Report, the overall prevalence of Trachoma was 0.7% in the country. 
  • This is much below the elimination criteria defined by the World Health Organisation.

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