In 2018, we are celebrating 20 years of progress in eliminating trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness. Set up in 1998 by Pfizer Inc. and the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, the International Trachoma Initiative (ITI) supports Ministries of Health in over 30 countries around ... the world by making Zithromax® available for use in public health campaigns to eliminate trachoma. The 20th anniversary of our founding gives us an opportunity to reflect on the distance we’ve traveled in fighting this disease, and raise the ambition for accelerating to a world where diseases like trachoma are a distant memory. We have not traveled alone these past 20 years – a broad coalition of actors including NGOs, the World Health Organization (WHO), Ministries of Health, health workers, and community members have made these incredible achievements possible. Our 20th anniversary gives us an opportunity to celebrate this coalition of partners, colleagues, and friends more

More and more countries are completing their epidemiological mapping of trachoma in suspected endemic districts and are preparing to distribute Zithromax® in those districts where the prevalence of “trachomatous inflammation – follicular” (TF) is above 5% among children aged 1-9 years. Mass ... drug administration (MDA) is normally at the district level and targets the whole population with Zithromax® tablets to those 5 years old and above; Zithromax® suspension for children between 6 months and 5 years of age; and tetracycline eye ointment 1% for infants up to 6 months old. more

Over the course of their lives, women spend more time with children than men. Because young children are the reservoirs of trachoma infection, contact with them can result in more frequent trachoma infection. This gender-specific exposure to trachoma risk factors places women at a higher risk for tr ... achoma infections and subsequent blindness. Although both men and women can develop trichiasis, the odds of trichiasis are greater among women than men. more