Trachoma remains the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, even though it is a preventable eye disease caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis.
The disease spreads through flies or direct contact with eye or nasal discharge from an infected individual.
Repeated infections can cause the eyelashes to turn inward, leading to pain and damage to the cornea. In severe cases, surgery is required to prevent blindness.
Some 30 years ago, 1.7% of people in Vietnam’s high-risk areas needed surgery to avoid blindness from the disease.
However, by 2023, this rate had dropped to below 0.2%, meeting the WHO’s threshold for eliminating trachoma as a public health issue./.
