Eyeworld

EW INTERNATIONAL 108 September 2016 by Liz Hillman EyeWorld Staff Writer chair, International Coalition for Trachoma Control (ICTC), and global partnerships executive, The Fred Hollows Foundation. "If you had asked me those same questions 4 to 5 years ago, the number of un- knowns almost overshadowed what we did know, but as a result of the Global Trachoma Mapping Proj- ect, we now know where to target those efforts. We have a clear idea of where WHO's SAFE [surgery for tri- chiasis, antibiotics, facial cleanliness, and environmental improvement] strategy should be implemented." undertaken. To put the work into perspective, for the 36 months of the GTMP, one person was exam- ined for trachoma every 40 seconds, on average. Overall, there are still 200 mil- lion people in 42 countries at risk for trachoma, and 3.2 million people are in need of surgery to avoid tra- choma-related blindness. "We now know exactly the level of treatment needed, where they are, and what kind of scale of effort to target the disease for elimination," said Virginia Sarah, disease. To drill down and achieve the GET2020 feat, stakeholders had to better identify where the disease was still endemic and the level of effort needed in those areas. The result was the Global Tra- choma Mapping Project (GTMP), which released data and findings in July 2016. 1 In the GTMP, 600 teams traversed more than 1,500 health districts in 29 countries screening 2.6 million people over the course of 3 years. It was the world's largest survey of an infectious disease ever Global Trachoma Mapping Project identifies 200 million people still at risk for disease I n 1996, the World Health Or- ganization (WHO) formed the Alliance for the Global Elim- ination of Trachoma by 2020 (GET2020). Now, less than 4 years away from that goal, there are still millions at risk or suffering from the preventable, vision-threatening World's largest survey of an infectious disease 144 districts require urgent interventions Status of endemicity

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