Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Fighting Blindness in Non-Western Countries The socioeconomic impact of the leading causes of blindness was the impetus for creating many disease control programs such as Onchocerciasis Control Programme in 1975. OCP was successful in eliminating onchocerciasis as a public health problem in 10 of the 11 countries in which it operated. As early as the late nineteenth century, during a time of hightened quest for infectious agents, a German missionary naturalist in Ghana, identified effilaria. In worms of variable length, living freely or encysted in nodules under the skin, they could survive for about twelve years. Their eggs, in the uterus of the female, engender microscopic larvae, call microfilaria, which can be found abundantly in the dermis of the skin, the lymphatic ganglions and eye tissues, live for one or two years. Now in the 21st century, there are political and philanthropic groups like the Bill and Melinda Gates and World Optometry Foundations, granting millions of dollars toward the eradication of such diseases as onchocerciasis and trachoma, as well as unnecessarily blinding conditions like cataract. Education and support could mean the difference between a life of poverty and a life of opportunity for someone who is needlessly blind or visually impaired. Links & Resources www.vision2020.org www.bmj.com www.who.int/ncd/vision2020_actionplan Global Perspectives of Blindness www.cartercenter.org www.socyberty.com/disabled/low-vision-in-nigeria-independence-day-for-the-blind-and-visuallyimpaired Text goes here. www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/144278.php www.stanford.wellsphere.com www.nytimes.com/2002/0310/world/sudan Lawson, Ligon, Berger & Bermejo [email protected] 214-675-4061 Trachoma Onchocerciasis and Cataract Trachoma Trachoma is the world’s leading infectious cause of preventable blindness. Most common in Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia this painful eye infection is caused by a bacterium prevalent in poor communities with limited access to adequata sanitation and clean water, which leads to a build-up of scar tissue, forcing the eyelid to curl inward. With each blink, the eyelashes rake over the cornea. Vision is diminished and if left treated, results in permanent blindness. Trachoma sufferers eventually blink themselves blind, yet, the simple surgery has a success rate of 80% and can cost as little as $10 per person. For those in the early stages of trachoma, a course of tetracycline ointment or an oral dose of the antibiotic Zithromax will stop the infection. Endemic in 55 countries, with 75% of the afflicted in Africa, trachoma has left 8 million people irreversibly blind and another 84 million are in need of treatment. Women and children are most often affected, with women three times more likely to be blinded by trachoma than men. Trachoma is spread through a cycle of infection and reinfection, often, mother to child and back, so long term elimination is dependent on such preventive, innovative community-based programs as enhanced school health, education and health worker training to provide trichiasis surgery. Early rteatment, before the development of scarring and lid deformities has an excellent prognosis. Cataract Cataract, a clouding of the lens of the eye that impedes light traveling through to the retina, is responsible for almost half of the seven million blind Africans, meaning, three and a half million Africans are needlessly blind. Globally, it’s the single most important cause of blindness, with estimates at nearly 18 million people who are bilaterally blind from cataract. Cataract occurs at a younger age in Africa and blinds many people there in the prime of their lives. Blindness there also carries with it a mortality rate four times higher, and two thirds of the blind people in Africa are women. In many areas, men have twice the access to eye care as women. A five year study of Guatemalans cooking on open fires, comined with studies in Asia, suggest indoor air pollution, (as sell as over exposure to the sun’s uv rays) can cause potentially and unnecessarily blinding cataracts. In the U.S., an opthalmologist would usually ypically see about 50 cases of cataract a year. In comparison, an opthalmologist in India, where blindness caused by cataract remains a scourge, there might be as many as 50 cases in a morning! The primary limitations for eradicating preventable cataract blindness in non-western countries are lack of resources and political will addressing it as a global public health issue. The W.H.O.’s global Vision 2020 aims to eliminate blindness due to cataract by providing education, surgical services at a rate eliminating the backlog of cataract at an affordable rate, and offering high quality, low cost intraocular lenses. Onchocerciasis Once a leading cause of preventable blindness, the global disease burden of onchocerciasis, a parasitic infection causing blindness in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Yemen, has been reduced as a result of successful disease control programs led by the W.H.O. Past containment efforts relied on spraying larvacide, which had qualified sucess in reducing the black fly population. That success was short-lived. Using donated supplies and the services of groups like the Carter Center, the W.H.O estimates onchocerciasis can be so severly reduced, “...it could be eliminated as a public health problem.” Onchocerciasis, also known as ‘River Blindness,’ is one of a handful of eye diseases hovering on the brink of eradication, but is hard to finish off. Chances of resurgence appear to be increasing in the Kossou Dam area of the Ivory Coast, where larvacide was once focused. Black fly infestation is again prevalent in the area, driving farmers from fields. Invermectin handouts started again, but the rivier divides the warring factions and the health system is broken. Health experts gathered in the Sudan, where war has raged for almost two decades, blocking most humanitarian efforts, have come up with a straightforard, yet daunting antidote to the disease: peace.