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Pfizer Dramatically Boosts Program to Eliminate Blinding Trachoma
Thursday December 9, 2004
A global donation program by medicines company Pfizer to eliminate trachoma,
the blinding eye infection common in the developing world, is being dramatically
expanded.
Pfizer says its International Trachoma Initiative donation program, which
is in its fifth year, is showing a reduction in acute infections in children
by as much as 50 percent in some program areas.
As part of the program's expansion, Pfizer will donate 135 million treatments
of its antibiotic, azithromycin, in addition to the eight million treatments
administered over the last five years - a 15-fold expansion.
Pfizer has spent $A420m to date on the International Trachoma Initiative
and expects to spend another $A715m over the next five years.
The goal of completely eliminating blinding trachoma, the world's leading
cause of preventable blindness, now seems possible by 2020, a date set by the
World Health Organization (WHO), according to results published in the November
issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
Trachoma has been a public health plague since ancient times and is currently
prevalent in the poorest parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, where clean
water and sanitation are scarce.
Under the direction of the International Trachoma Initiative - a partnership
among Pfizer, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, national governments and
non-governmental organisations - programs are now under way in nine countries:
Morocco, Ghana, Mali, Tanzania, Vietnam, Sudan, Niger, Nepal and Ethiopia.
"We are winning the fight against blindness from trachoma because we have
an extraordinary strategy and effective partnerships in our program countries," said
Pfizer Australia Medical Director Dr Craig Eagle.
"Building on the momentum of our achievements to date, we are launching at
least 10 new country programs.
"Based on the progress to date, it is now realistic to hope for something
that was unimaginable just a few years ago - that within the next 20 years
we will ensure that trachoma is largely unheard of ever again."
In Morocco, the first country to implement the International Trachoma Initiative,
there has been a 90 percent reduction in the prevalence of active trachoma
infection among children under 10 since 1997. Morocco expects to eliminate
blinding trachoma entirely by the end of 2005.
In Vietnam, where the government had already reduced the prevalence of trachoma
from more than 60 percent in 1960 to less than 10 percent in 1996, pockets
of the debilitating disease remain.
The Vietnam trachoma program's objective is to eliminate blinding trachoma
by 2010. The program area, with an estimated population of 1.8 million, includes
243 communes in 13 districts. Since 2000 some 16,000 eye operations have been
completed and more than 440,000 antibiotic treatments have been administered.
Trachoma is a chronic, contagious infection that over time results in in-turned
eyelashes, which then scratch and scar the cornea, leading to blindness if
not treated. Trachoma is endemic in 48 countries, with an estimated 146 million
infected. Women are two to three times more likely than men to be infected
by trachoma and because the disease causes blindness in the most productive
years of a person's life, it can ruin the economic well-being of entire families
and communities.
One expert study has estimated that the economies of developing countries
lose $2.9 billion in productivity per year to blindness caused by trachoma.
Through the ITI, Pfizer donates azithromycin to countries that implement
the "SAFE" strategy, which the WHO recommends as the most effective way to
treat trachoma. SAFE includes these components:
- surgery for late-stage disease;
- antibiotics for active infection;
- improved facial hygiene and environmental change, such as improved access
to clean water and sanitation.
Pfizer Australia is the nation's leading research-based health care company.
It discovers, develops, manufactures and markets innovative medical treatments
for both humans and animals.