Ethiopia is one of the poorest nations in the world and the Afar region in the north-east is by far the most disadvantaged and under-resourced area of the country. For a population of 1.3 million there are only two health facilities, a 7% literacy rate and fewer than 10% of the population has access to safe water.
Trachoma is a contagious eye disease and the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness. It is spread from person to person via hands, clothing or flies and, as a result, occurs in clusters, affecting entire families and communities. This affects the economic well-being of the family as it occurs during the most productive years of their lives.
In the Afar region the rate of trachoma infection is particularly high, around 50%. This is because communities in the region suffer from a lack of clean water and poor hygiene practices. Compounding this situation there are only two trained primary eye care workers in the whole region.
Aims
To implement the SAFE strategy – Surgery for trichiasis, Antibiotics for the active disease, Face washing and Environmental sanitation:
- To improve health education, awareness and promotion of trachoma prevention practices
- Increase access to clean water and sanitation
- Increase facial cleanliness, particularly for children
- Treating 80% of the backlog of cases through surgery
- Treat 700,000 people with antibiotics
Achievements
- Local surgeons trained to perform surgery; over 1,000 operations performed so far
- Local nurses trained to provide eye health care
- Wells and boreholes for clean water, and sanitary latrines constructed
- Antibiotics made available and widely distributed
- Sanitation and hygiene education being delivered in schools through trachoma and sanitation clubs, and in the village through ‘village hygiene promoters’