This is an excerpt from Carter Center Trachoma Control Program Director Dr. Paul Emerson’s Huffington Post Blog, “The Eye of the Beholder: Why Fighting Trachoma Matters.”
In the poorest places in the world, an eye disease called trachoma is robbing women of their dignity, their hope for the future, and even their ability to ensure the survival of their children.
“Trachoma” sounds like a remote or obscure disease, but this bacterial infection used to exist throughout the world, including in the United States and in my own native Great Britain.
Only a few decades ago, wealthy nations wiped out the disease through improvements in access to medical care and sanitation.
Yet, trachoma lingers in the most neglected countries on earth, with more than 320 million people remaining at risk. It has been estimated that the economic cost of trachoma could be as high as U.S. $4 billion to 6 billion, an unimaginable sum to communities who live on less than two dollars a day.
The human toll of trachoma, however, is incalculable.
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