Project background
Trachoma is the leading infectious cause of blindness worldwide. This painful disease begins as a contagious infection similar to conjunctivitis, but with far greater consequences. Multiple infections cause the eyelashes to turn inward and painfully scrape the surface of the eye. This can cause permanent and irreversible blindness.
Ethiopia has the world’s largest burden of trachoma. More than 70 million people live in trachoma endemic areas in the country.
The Fred Hollows Foundation is working to eliminate trachoma from Ethiopia by 2020, consigning this ancient disease to the history books and saving the eyesight of hundreds of thousands of people.
Project activities
We reach the most remote and under-serviced communities affected by trachoma. Teams of eye health workers are deployed across the country, screening for eye disease, distributing antibiotics and performing sight-saving surgery.
To reduce the trachoma backlog, The Foundation invests in training trachoma surgeons, case finders and community health workers. These health workers play a vital role in identifying trachoma hotspots and providing surgery for those who need it.
Lastly, we’ve been putting resources toward strengthening our face washing and environmental improvement strategies. Behaviours do not change easily, and there is long-term work that needs to be done to ensure improvements in these areas and make sure that reinfections don’t occur.
The Foundation has supported substantial work to rehabilitate water schemes, educate communities and schools about face washing and hygiene, and address open defecation.
Project results
The Foundation’s sight-saving work in Ethiopia is showing excellent progress. With your support, The Fred Hollows Foundation achieved the following results between January and June 2019:
- 9,489 sight-saving surgeries and treatments performed
- 15 million people treated with antibiotics for trachoma
- 61 water points built or repaired
- 13,197 community health workers trained in eye health
The Foundation will continue its efforts to reduce the surgical backlog and eliminate trachoma in 2020.
Case study: Hawiti's story
Hawiti, a 60-year-old grandmother, lived with trachoma for over a year before she visited an eye clinic in remote Ethiopia. Without treatment, every painful blink was bringing her closer to blindness.
Barely able to see, Hawiti walked for three hours, setting out at dawn with her daughter by her side.
At the clinic she was met by young surgeon Feyera Bekele, an eye care worker trained by The Fred Hollows Foundation to perform trachoma surgery. Trachoma is a disease of poverty. It’s found in some of the poorest and most remote parts of the world, where there is poor sanitation, a lack of water and limited medical facilities.
Tragically, years of instability, drought and famine has taken its toll on the country’s development. Most of Ethiopia’s population live in rural areas with limited access to medical and eye health services. Surgery is the only way to prevent permanent blindness. Controlling the spread of the disease through antibiotics and providing ongoing education and better hygiene is also vital.
With your support, our efforts to eliminate trachoma in Ethiopia have made it possible for more people like Hawiti to access sight-saving treatment. The day after her surgery, when her patches came off, Hawiti’s beaming smile said it all. For the first time in more than a year she could see clearly. Her crippling pain was gone.
Hawiti told us, “I felt free when they took the patch off. I bless you all for giving me better sight.”
What next?
As we inch closer towards eliminating trachoma in Ethiopia, The Foundation will continue to scale up its sight-saving work in 2020. This includes delivering outreach eye care, distributing antibiotics and ensuring trachoma is prevented through improved hygiene and sanitation practices.
Can I visit this project?
Interested donors should contact The Fred Hollows Foundation. For more information, please go to www.hollows.org.
Project background
Ethiopia is a landlocked country with natural beauty, dramatic landscapes and great cultural diversity. Tragically years of instability, drought and famine have taken their toll on the country’s development.
Most Ethiopian people live in rural areas with limited access to medical and eye health services. Extreme poverty, high rates of illness and disease, poor sanitation and a lack of clean, safe water are common issues among the population.
Ethiopia has the world’s largest burden of trachoma. More than 70 million people live in trachoma endemic areas in the country.
When The Fred Hollows Foundation started work in Ethiopia in 2013, more than 180,000 people were in urgent need of sight-saving surgery to prevent blindness. Since then, we’ve conducted more than 110,000 surgeries with 27,841 more planned this year.
In less than five years, we have achieved trachoma elimination in 16 districts and are well on the way to elimination in the remaining 249 districts where we currently work.
Project overview
Trachoma is the leading infectious cause of blindness worldwide. This painful disease begins as a contagious infection similar to conjunctivitis, but with far greater consequences. Multiple infections cause the eyelashes to turn inward and painfully scrape the surface of the eye. This can cause permanent and irreversible blindness.
The condition spreads from person to person through unwashed hands, shared face-wiping cloths, and by flies that have been in contact with an infected person.
Trachoma thrives in dry and dusty environments. It is a disease of poverty, occurring where living conditions are crowded, water is scarce and sanitation is poor.
Our bold ambition to eliminate trachoma requires an innovative approach to health care delivery. We reach the most remote communities affected by trachoma by deploying small surgical teams across the country to screen for trachoma and conduct surgery, saving the sight of dozens of people each day.
This grassroots process has been extraordinarily effective. To reduce the trachoma backlog and urgently scale our work, we invest in training case finders and community health workers, and engage community leaders and teachers.
Most importantly, our work has focused on upskilling the existing health workforce to perform a simple surgery to reverse the effects of blinding trachoma.
Sight-saving surgery alleviates the immense pain caused by scratching in-turned eye-lashes and restores people’s independence to carry out the most basic activities. It provides opportunities to work and support their families, and contribute to their communities.
In addition to the mass distribution of antibiotics to stop the spread if the disease, personal hygiene and environmental improvements are key to the permanent elimination of trachoma.
Currently water access is one of the major challenges severely undermining elimination efforts in affected communities. The Foundation supports infrastructure projects to supply clean water and sanitation to communities and schools. In particular we support the development of accessible water points and latrines, waste disposal systems and public toilets to break the cycle of reinfection.
What's covered in project cost
The Fred Hollows Foundation has successfully implemented the largest trachoma elimination initiative in the world. Last year we supported one in five trachoma surgeries globally.
Right now, as many as 70,000 people in Ethiopia’s Oromia region are in urgent need of sight-saving surgery to prevent them from going permanently blind. This year, we must perform 27,814 surgeries to reduce the backlog.
With your generous support, The Fred Hollows Foundation will achieve the following outputs as part of the broader project in 2019:
- 27,814 sight saving surgeries and treatments.
- 18 million people treated with antibiotics.
- 277 water points in the community built or repaired.
- 31,588 community health workers, case finders and trachoma surgeons trained.
Partners and community involvement
The Fred Hollows Foundation works in partnership with like-minded organisations and health providers to ensure the largest possible reach and impact of our sight restoring work.
In Ethiopia, we work with the Federal Ministry of Health, regional health departments and local hospitals to deliver vital sight-saving work.
Part of a larger strategy
The Fred Hollows Foundation’s 2019-2023 Strategic Plan sets out the impact we aspire to have and how we will deliver that impact. This strategy sets ambitious targets against our disease priorities, including finally eliminating trachoma.