Experts celebrate progress towards eliminating trachoma in Tanzania

Trachoma experts gathered in Tanzania this week to celebrate the significant progress that has been made to eliminate the disease from the country over the past four years.

Tanzania Minister of Health Ummy Mwalimu and members of the Ministry’s trachoma elimination team met Sightsavers, the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust, DFID representatives and implementing partners in Bahi District and Dodoma.

The group attended a village surgery camp where people with trichiasis, the most severe form of trachoma, were receiving sight-saving surgery. They discussed the achievements of two key trachoma programmes that are helping to control the disease in the area.

The programmes – the UK Aid-funded DFID SAFE programme and the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust’s Trachoma Initiative – have been working alongside the Tanzanian government to eliminate blinding trachoma since 2014 and 2015 respectively. Both programmes are coordinated by Sightsavers on behalf of the International Coalition for Trachoma Control.

Collectively, to date the programmes have:

• Provided sight-saving and pain-relieving surgery for more than 12,000 people
• Trained, retrained and certified surgeons to perform this vital treatment
• Trained more than 3,400 case finders to find people with trichiasis (the most severe form of trachoma) and refer them for treatment
• Trained and worked alongside 500 ward and community-level leaders and more than 200 hygiene counsellors in more than 80 villages to raise awareness about the importance of facial cleanliness and sanitation to prevent trachoma.

Sightsavers CEO Dr Caroline Harper said: “The significant impact both programmes have made on eliminating trachoma in Tanzania is cause for celebration and is testament to the close collaboration between all those involved. Distributing treatment, training surgeons and mobilising case finders on such a large scale has only been made possible through effective partnership working, and millions of people’s lives are better as a result.”