Nepal Validated by WHO for Eliminating Blinding Trachoma
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that it has validated Nepal as the sixth country to eliminate trachoma as a public health problem. Pfizer is excited to join the global trachoma community in celebrating this important milestone, which brings us one step closer to eliminating the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness once and for all.
Through the International Trachoma Initiative (ITI), Pfizer has worked with more than 100 partners to help end the suffering and cycle of poverty caused by trachoma. We are proud to stand alongside organizations such as RTI International – which implemented in Nepal its neglected tropical disease (NTD) control program ENVISION, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) – and we recognize the many important contributions made by the NTD elimination network around the world.
Trachoma is treatable and preventable through the WHO-recommended SAFE strategy, which stands for Surgery, Antibiotic treatment, Facial cleanliness and Environmental improvement. Since 1998, Pfizer has donated more than 730 million doses of an antibiotic to treat trachoma through ITI.
Nepal joins Oman, Morocco, Mexico, Lao PDR and Cambodia as countries validated by the WHO as having eliminated trachoma.
This remarkable progress is a testament to the power of partnerships, and we look forward to continued collaboration with organizations around the globe to achieve our final goal: a trachoma-free world. To learn more about how we’re supporting progress toward trachoma elimination, visit Pfizer.com/IndividualVoices.
