Sightsavers’ Boubacar Morou Dicko shares the obstacles Mali faced on the road to eliminating trachoma, and how the country was able to overcome them.
Both countries’ achievements have been validated by the World Health Organization, meaning they join a growing list of countries to have banished the disease.
Sightsavers has been awarded $16.9 million to continue and expand its deworming work, after a funding recommendation from US charity evaluator GiveWell.
In 2018, Sightsavers CEO Caroline Harper took to the TED stage to talk about the importance of eliminating trachoma. Since then, 14 million people have been protected from the disease, but further progress hangs in the balance.
The Astellas Global Health Foundation is giving US$536,700 to help combat river blindness, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis and intestinal worms.
Since 2012, Sightsavers has been using smartphones to collect high-quality data, so that countries can effectively map the disease and focus their elimination efforts.
Sightsavers’ Simon Bush has received a lifetime achievement award for his work on river blindness, and has been named president of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
Sightsavers and the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene are hosting an event with experts from the Ascend West and Central Africa programme to share key learnings.
The funding, which will be spent between now and 2025, will help to protect millions of people from the harmful effects of NTDs.
Meet Samson, a trachoma surgeon who’s saving people’s sight by performing pop-up operations and outreach in remote communities in Kenya.