In 2016 an estimated 200 million people are at risk of trachoma in 42 countries mainly in Sub-Saharan African countries like Ethiopia where 75 million people are at risk but also Afghanistan, India, Brazil, Colombia and some Pacific Island nations. Low-income countries like Oman, Morocco, Ghana, Gambia, Iran, Mexico, Nepal, China, Cambodia and Laos have eliminated trachoma in the last 10 years while Australia remains the only high income country to still have trachoma.(2)
Trachoma disappeared from mainstream Australia over one hundred years ago when improved hygiene facilities, water infrastructure and living conditions were introduced. Trachoma persists in the remote Aboriginal communities due to lack of safe, washing facilities in notoriously poor and chronically overcrowded housing infrastructure and poor hygiene. Young children with constant eye and nose secretions in remote endemic communities sometimes go unnoticed and washing a child’s face whenever its dirty is not always common.(3)
(2) The Trachoma Atlas http://www.trachomaatlas.org
(3) Taylor HR (2008). Trachoma: A Blinding Scourge from the Bronze Age to the Twenty-first Century. Melbourne, Centre for Eye Research Australia
