Toilets Save Eyesight

This article deserves to be above the fold in the New York Times. Very insightful. Summary: if you want to prevent preventable blindness, you need to consider sanitation and safe water. Don't stop the surgeries, don't stop the antibiotics, and perhaps most importantly for the longrun, don't neglect the Facewashing and Environmental Sanitation parts of the SAFE strategy.

Zambia – Toilets save eyesight, new study confirms
November 16, 2009

CALGARY, Nov. 16 /CNW/ – Why in the world is an organization dedicated to the treatment and prevention of blindness spending money on toilets?

“Because believe it or not, toilets and blindness are directly connected,” says Pat Ferguson, President & CEO of Operation Eyesight. “Proper sanitation and clean water are in short supply in the developing world and that contributes to a high rate of unnecessary blindness and other serious health problems.”

A new study conducted by Zambia’s Ministry of Health and supported by Operation Eyesight found that trachoma was 28 per cent more likely to strike in households that do not have proper toilet facilities. The study, which covered five districts in Zambia, found that up to 80 per cent of the households surveyed do not have toilets.

“Trachoma is caused by a bacterium and is easily spread from person to person and by flies which breed on human waste,” says Ferguson. “So it’s no surprise that proper sewage disposal helps to prevent this horrible disease.”

Trachoma is the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness. In parts of Zambia and Kenya where Operation Eyesight supports development projects designed to eliminate trachoma, up to 30 per cent of children age one to nine years are infected.

Without treatment, trachoma causes a person’s eyelids to turn inward so that the eyelashes constantly scrape the eyeball. It is extremely painful and can lead to permanent blindness. The World Health Organization estimates more than 80 million people are affected by trachoma and about 8 million suffer the advanced stages of the disease and are visually impaired.

Operation Eyesight’s trachoma projects are designed to both treat and permanently eliminate trachoma. The projects follow the World Health Organization-endorsed SAFE strategy which includes Surgery to treat the late stage of the disease, Antibiotics to eliminate infection, Face washing and hygiene promotion, and Environmental change including water wells and latrines to prevent re-infection.

To be effective, the ambitious projects require construction of thousands of latrines, drilling hundreds of wells, mass distribution of antibiotics and training thousands of citizens in hygiene and well management.

“These projects are large and costly,” says Ferguson, “But the benefits are enormous. In addition to preventing unnecessary blindness, the SAFE strategy dramatically reduces other serious diseases, helps keep children in school and saves women the need to walk many kilometers in search of water, which is usually unfit for human consumption.”

Operation Eyesight is working in close partnership with the governments of Kenya and Zambia and is a member of GET2020, the World Health Organization initiative to eradicate trachoma from the entire world by 2020. For more information about Operation Eyesight’s trachoma projects, visit www.operationeyesight.com.

Operation Eyesight is a Canadian international development organization dedicated to preventing and treating blindness throughout the world for more than 45 years – primarily in South Asia and Africa. We help local medical professionals provide comprehensive, sustainable eye care and community development for the people of the world who can least afford it. Since 1963, Operation Eyesight has restored sight to more than two million people and provided blindness prevention services to nearly 33 million others. For more information, visit www.operationeyesight.com.

Global Blindness – Every five seconds, one person in our world goes blind and a child goes blind every minute. More than 90 per cent of the world’s blind people live in developing countries, where day-to-day life is already challenging and blindness is a direct threat to life. About 80 per cent of this blindness is preventable or treatable.

Source – NewsWire

Water is Medicine: Capitol Hill Briefing July 29, 2009

Invitation - Water is Medicine - Capitol Hill Briefing - July 29

On Wednesday July 29, 2009, the bipartisan Congressional Water Caucus and Water Advocates are hosting a Capitol Hill Briefing in Washington DC on the vital linkages between safe drinking water, sanitation and global public health challenges:

Water is Medicine: Safe Water, Sanitation and Global Public Health Challenges

Speakers will discuss the gravity of the current global safe drinking water and sanitation challenge, and its critical impact on global public health, including the 25+ diseases due to unsafe water and inadequate sanitation. Speakers will also review what is currently being done around the world to help meet the need for safe water, improved sanitation and better health, and offer examples and case studies of what the U.S. government and others in the international donor community are doing to help meet and exceed the Millennium Development Goals for water, sanitation and health. The costs associated with this challenge will be addressed, as will the impact of inaction on health and economic development.

What: Capitol Hill Briefing, "Water is Medicine: Safe Water, Sanitation and Global Public Health Challenges"

Who: Speakers will include noted public health experts and leaders from prominent international aid agencies

• Dr. Christine Moe, Director, Center for Global Safe Water, Emory University
• Ms. Jae So, Manager, Water and Sanitation Program
• UNICEF (invited)
  

When: Wednesday, July 29, 2009, 2pm - 3pm

Where: Capitol Visitor Center, South Meeting Room

Please circulate this invitation widely, and RSVP to Water Advocates at wateradvocatesrsvp@gmail.com.