Trachoma then and now: update on mapping and control

COMMUNITY EYE HEALTH JOURNAL | VOLUME 30 | NUMBER 100 | 2017 W hen the fi rst issue of the Community Eye Health Journal was being sent to readers around the world in 1988, trachoma was at a turning point. One of the two foundational clinical trials establishing the eff ectiveness of the bilamellar tarsal rotation procedure for trachomatous trichiasis had just been completed; the other was about to start.1,2 The pharmacokinetics and antimicrobial spectrum of azithromycin, a recently discovered macrolide antibiotic, were in the process of being defi ned.3,4 The epidemiological association between a lack of facial cleanliness and the presence of active trachoma was becoming clearly established5,6 and the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) simplifi ed grading system had just been published,7 providing non-specialist health personnel working in endemic communities with a means to clearly and quickly identify and record the burden of disease. Additionally, the fi rst national survey of the prevalence and causes of blindness in a country in Africa had just fi nished; it was conducted in The Gambia and suggested that 17% of all blindness there was due to trachoma.8 These developments led, in the subsequent decade, to: