Data to inform these messages are derived from the GET2020 database and the WHO Weekly Epidemiological Review annual updates on trachoma. ICTC strongly encourages its membership and all trachoma stakeholders to utilize these figures for consistency of messaging.
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Trachoma is the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness and one of 20 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that affect over one billion of the world’s poorest people - Source: WHO
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124 million people live in trachoma endemic areas - Source: WHO GET2020 database
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Trachoma is responsible for the visual impairment or blindness of about 1.9 million people - Source: World Report on Vision, 2019
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13 countries have been validated by WHO as having eliminated trachoma as a public health problem (Cambodia, China, The Gambia, Ghana, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Togo) - Source: WHO GET2020 database
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7 countries may require interventions but in which the necessary investigations in suspected trachoma-endemic areas have not yet been completed (Angola, Botswana, Libya, Micronesia, Namibia, Somalia, Venezuela) – Source: WHO GET2020 database
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44 countries are known to require interventions - Source: WHO Weekly Epidemiological Record, 6 August 2021
- The numbder of people at risk from trachoma has reduced by 92%, from 1.5 billion in 2002 to 124 million in 2022. Source: WHO GET2020 database
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The estimated number of individuals with trachomatous trichiasis, the late blinding stage of trachoma, reduced by 76% from 7.6 million in 2002 to 1.8 million in 2022. Source: WHO GET2020 database
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In 2020, 32.8 million people received antibiotics for trachoma. Antibiotics were distributed in 334 (25%) of the 1,338 districts that qualified during 2020. – Source: WHO Weekly Epidemiological Record, 6 August 2021
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Over 952 million Zithromax® antibiotic treatments have been shipped since 1999 – Source: WHO Weekly Epidemiological Record, 6 August 2021
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Nigeria, which holds 4% of the global burden of trachoma, has reduced its at risk population from 21.8 million in 2016 to 5.08 million people in 2021 - Source: WHO GET2020 database
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Ethiopia, which carries 49% of the global burden of trachoma, has reduced its at risk population from 74 million in 2016 to 65 million people in 2022 - Source: WHO GET2020 database
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Women are twice as likely to need eye surgery than men to treat trachomatous trichiasis, the late blinding stage of trachoma - Source: The excess burden of trachomatous trichiasis in women: a systematic review and meta-analysis, 2009
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