The Disease

• Trachoma is a disease of the eye, caused by the bacteria chlamydia rrachomatis. Forty-one million people carry a trachoma infection. More than 8 million suffer from advanced trachoma with visual impairment or blindness. Trachoma is highly contagious, spread by physical contact with an infected person or by flies that have come into contact with the infection.
  
  

Sociological Issues

• Trachoma is little-known outside of communities affected by the epidemic. Since the disease spreads through close personal contact, it tends to infect entire families and communities. Trachoma thrives mainly in rural, overcrowded populations with poor health care and limited access to food and water. Sadly, trachoma is so commonplace in some communities that blindness is accepted as a likely fate. Studies indicate that hygiene is the largest risk factor for the disease, but infected societies receive little to no education in the treatment and prevention of trachoma.
  
  

Manifestation

• Trachoma does not cause instant blindness. The manifestation of the disease is a slow process. Although most susceptible to the disease, children notice relatively few symptoms until adulthood. In adulthood the eyelashes turn inward---scratching the cornea---and a long, painful process eventually leads to complete blindness.
  
  

Economic Implications

• Entire societies afflicted by trachoma suffer economic crisis. The disease affects families from generation to generation. Once vision completely deteriorates in one or both parents, children are pulled from school so that they may provide for the family. Lack of education further weakens the chances of economic improvement.
  
  

Prevention and Treatment

• Simple sanitary measures to such as washing hands, not sharing clothes or towels and not eating or drinking after one another may help slow the transmission of trachoma. Antibiotics, if used in the early phases of infection, may prevent long-term complications. Severe cases require surgery to prevent blindness.