Extremely painful and contagious

Imagine what it would be like to have broken bits of eyelash continually scraping against your eye.

That’s what trachoma causes. It’s extremely agonizing and can devastate entire villages.

What starts off like conjunctivitis, ends up – after years of painful and repeated infection – with your eyelids turning in. This makes your eyelashes scrape the surface of your eye.

Eventually your corneas become so scraped, so scarred, you permanently go blind.

Trachoma is caused by Chlamydia Trachomatis. It is passed on through contact with the eye discharge from the infected person or by eye-seeking flies.

Eye doctors call trachoma ‘a disease of the crèche’. It’s caught and spread among young families. Most of the time, little children pass it on when they play together. Or, mums and dads spread the infection when they wipe their children’s faces.

Trachoma is a horrible, painful disease which affects more than 84 million people around the world.

The good news is, with your help, trachoma can be both prevented and treated.

Lucky’s Story

Lucky is just a baby. Although he has just had his first birthday, his family is not celebrating.

Like most children in his village, Lucky has trachoma.

Flies which spread this vicious, horrible disease are attracted to the discharge from his ear infection.

Lucky is in agony. Trachoma feels like hot peppers on your eyes. His tiny fingers scratch at his eyes trying to relieve the pain.

Without help he would continue to slowly, painfully, go irreversibly blind.

The good news is Lucky’s sight can be saved. Thanks to CBM funding, he will be one of lucky ones.

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Facts about Trachoma

• Trachoma is highly infectious and can spread rapidly through entire villages.
• Eight million people in the world are visually impaired or at risk of blindness from trachoma.
• Three quarters of these are women, who are at greater risk due to their constant contact with children, the prime carriers of the trachoma infection.
• Another 84 million people – 75% children – have the active trachoma infection and are in need of treatment to stop it progressing.
• The only way to save the sight of a person with advanced trachoma is through eyelid rotation surgery. This is when the inturned eyelid is literally reversed.

At CBM we follow the WHO approved SAFE approach:

S = Lid Surgery

A = Antibiotics to treat the community pool of infection

F = Facial cleanliness

E = Environmental changes

For more information about trachoma visit the World Health Organisation

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