Health Programs

The Carter Center Trachoma Control Program

Trachoma is the leading cause of preventable blindness worldwide. It is caused by infection with Chlamydia trachomatis bacteria, making it both treatable and preventable. Trachoma affects the poorest of the poor - people marginalized and neglected in developing countries who are already struggling to survive.

Trachoma has blinded 7 million people worldwide and an additional 500 million are living at risk. Compounding the misery of lost eyesight is trachoma's devastating economic and social impact on communities already on the edge of survival. The economic impact of trachoma has been estimated at USD$2.9 billion per year. In the countries where The Carter Center fights trachoma, the average annual income is between USD$100 and USD$370.

Trachoma Breaks Families

The advanced stage of trachoma, trichiasis - the inward turning of eyelashes that leads to corneal abrasion and eventual blindness - causes extraordinary pain and discomfort. Women are approximately three times more likely to have trichiasis than men. The condition makes it extremely uncomfortable for women to cook over smoky fires, collect water in bright sun, or farm in dusty fields. While older women with trichiasis may be looked after by their children, younger ones are frequently divorced by their husbands and sent back to their parents.  Women incapacitated with trichiasis become a burden on their families and communities. 

There Is Hope

Through community empowerment, trachoma can be eliminated from endemic communities.  The World Health Organization-endorsed SAFE Strategy represents a series of interventions to control trachoma: Surgery, Antibiotics, Facial cleanliness, and Environmental improvement. The Carter Center and its partners, the ministries of health in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Sudan, with the generous support of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and the Lions Clubs International Foundation, are working together to implement the SAFE strategy in order to eliminate trachoma from at-risk communities.