Further progress made towards eliminating blinding eye disease

With the estimated number of people affected by the infectious eye disease, blinding trachoma, dropping from 360 million people to 80 million over the past 21 years, several more countries are on track to eliminate the scourge, the United Nations health agency announced today.

At the meeting Iran, Mexico, Morocco and Oman reported successfully implementing their national strategies of interventions necessary for eliminating trachoma, based on the WHO-recommended SAFE strategy.

"This is very encouraging progress...If countries continue at this rate, the global goal to eliminate blinding trachoma as a public health problem by 2020 can be achieved." - Director-General Lee Jong-wook, WHO