How Mali overcame three big challenges and eliminated trachoma | Blogs

The Mali government has just announced that our country has eliminated the infectious eye disease trachoma as a public health problem.

As Sightsavers Country Director for Mali, I am proud that we have achieved this historic milestone. Trachoma leads to a vicious cycle of pain, poverty and disability; without it, more children will have the freedom to learn and more adults will be able to earn a living. Beating the disease is also a step towards equality, as women are nearly twice as likely to go blind from the disease than men.

However, getting to this point has not been easy. We have faced great obstacles throughout the many years of our fight against the disease. Here, I’ll be revealing the top three challenges we face and how we overcome them. I hope this will inspire other countries that are still on their way to eliminating trachoma.

Challenge 1: Millions of people at risk of trachoma

When a survey was carried out in 1996, trachoma was found in nearly every region of the country, identifying nearly 10 million people at risk of the blinding disease. The task before us was monumental. Fortunately, the SAFE strategy, adopted by the WHO in 1993, gave us the tools we needed.

SAFE stands for surgery, antibiotics, facial cleansing, and environmental improvements. Together these elements have been used to defeat trachoma in countries around the world.

We have a saying in Mali: “Dôni-Dôni te-tô-to kola”. It means that if we do something every day, we can overcome any challenge. This is especially true when we work in partnership with other like-minded organizations.

We benefited from close collaboration with other non-governmental organizations such as The Carter Center and Helen Keller Intl, and together we were able to help the Mali government in its fight against trachoma. They were in the driver’s seat as we provided technical support where it was needed.

Together we support the government to train 243 trachoma surgeons, perform almost 90,000 operations for advanced trachoma, distribute 29 million doses of antibiotics against the disease, and build nearly 140,000 latrines to improve sanitation and hygiene.

With each eye operation completed and latrine built, we knew we were saving more people from the agony and possible blindness caused by trachoma. After almost 30 years, we are proud to say that we have succeeded in our mission to eliminate disease.