Vietnam aims to halt blindness-causing trachoma in five years

Vietnam aims to halt blindness-causing trachoma in five years

Tini Tran, Associated Press, Hiep Hoa, Vietnam

Once rampant in Vietnam, the blindness-causing disease of trachoma still lurks in remote, rural villages where clean water is scarce and hygiene difficult.

But an aggressive, internationally backed health campaign has dramatically reduced infections. Within five years, Vietnam is expected to completely wipe out the disease, the world's leading cause of preventable blindness, officials said.

"Vietnam realizes it's in the final stages of this disease and it wants to make a final push to eliminate it," said Jacob Kumaresan, president of the New York-based International Trachoma Initiative, or ITI, which has been working with Vietnam since 2000 to provide funding, training and medication. "The key thing is the political will of the country."

If it succeeds by 2010, Vietnam would be one of the first countries in 50 years to rid itself of the disease, considered a major public health threat by the World Health Organization.

The announcement came this week, along with a visit to Vietnam by U.S. supermodel Cheryl Tiegs, an ITI spokeswoman. About 84 million people worldwide have active trachoma infections, with 8 million visually impaired.

The bacterial disease, prevalent in areas with limited water and sanitation, was found in up to 60 percent of the population in Vietnam during the 1950s.

It causes eyelashes to turn inward, scratching the cornea. Years of repeated infections can eventually lead to blindness. Simple surgery can correct the eyelid deformity - but without medication and clean water, people can easily be re-infected.

Vietnam had brought its infection rate down to about 10 percent of the population by 1999. But about 11 million people here still risk getting the disease, mainly in rural areas in the northern Red River delta and along the central coast.

ITI and government efforts focus on providing antibiotics, surgery, public education and clean water facilities to combat the disease, which mainly affects women and children.

Earlier this week, Tiegs arrived in Vietnam to highlight the international campaign. She handed out educational fliers to dozens of women and children crowding a medical distribution center in Hiep Hoa village in the northern province of Thai Binh for their annual doses of the antibiotic azithromycin.

Since 2000, American drug manufacturer Pfizer Inc. has donated a total of eight million doses - 1.3 million to Vietnam - toward ITI's global campaign.

Over the next five years, Pfizer will donate another 135 million doses, about 11 million of them to Vietnam.

"This is a disease that cripples women and children. That's not good for the family or the economy," Tiegs said. "This is a good cause in that we can eradicate it."