Photo by Naren Marthandan on Unsplash (illustrative)
On 8 October 2024, the World Health Organization validated India as having eliminated trachoma as a public health problem. The bacterial eye infection, which can cause irreversible blindness, was once among the main causes of blindness in the country.
Key facts
In 2005, trachoma was responsible for 4% of all cases of blindness in India.
By 2018, the prevalence of trachoma had fallen to 0.008%.
India became the third country in the WHO South-East Asia Region to reach the milestone, after Nepal and Myanmar.
Trachoma control in India began in 1963, and surveys covering 200 previously endemic districts confirmed the result.
Why it matters
Trachoma spreads most easily among young children where clean water and sanitation are scarce, and repeated infections can pull the eyelashes inward until they scrape and damage the eye. Ending it in India protects a very large population from a fully preventable form of blindness.
Worth noting
Elimination as a public health problem means the disease has fallen below WHO thresholds, not that it is gone entirely. Globally, trachoma remained a public health problem in 39 countries at the time and was responsible for the blindness of about 1.9 million people.