Let’s Congratulate Ourselves …At Least for Conquering Trachoma

News that Ghana has eradicated trachoma is one of the most positive to be handed the good people of Ghana in a long time.

Considering the fact that trachoma is a potentially blinding disease, one cannot but jump into the high heavens over news of its extermination from our part of the world. Interestingly, until the ‘good news’ broke in the media two weeks ago, it appears very little is known about trachoma by many Ghanaians, even though the World Health Organization (WHO) insists the disease accounts for 3.6% of the global blindness burden.

In the case of Ghana, experts say the disease is found mainly in communities where poverty, lack of water, crowding, and poor hygiene interplay. They say it starts as a bacterial infection and if left untreated, can cause irreversible blindness.

The disease has two distinct stages with an active stage affecting mainly children under ten years and a blinding stage that affects adults with predilection towards females.

Records indicate Ghana signed up to the initiative to eradicate trachoma in October 2000 through the National Trachoma Control Programme and has since been working towards eliminating it as a major cause of avoidable blindness.

Thankfully in 2018, the country has officially gained the WHO validation letter and a certificate, affirming that she had eliminated trachoma as a public health problem.

By this, the country has become the first in sub-Saharan Africa to achieve this milestone, two years before the global elimination target year of 2020.

Obviously, the feat did not come by accident, considering the volume of work that had been done over the years to bring the country this far.

In an address recently, Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, has conceded that the journey had been arduous, with many years of dedicated efforts and commitment by the Ministry of Health (MoH), Ghana Health Service (GHS) and other key partners.

For this singular achievement, THE PUBLISHER wishes to congratulate the entire range of organisations and individuals, including government leaders, medical professionals, health volunteers, community leaders in the former trachoma endemic districts and representatives from international organisations like Sightsavers, who played a part in making the ground-breaking achievement a reality.

The paper will like to specifically recognise the efforts of Dr Agatha Aboe, Global Trachoma Programme Advisor for Sightsavers and Dr Owen Laws Kaluwa, the WHO Representative, Ghana Country Office, and of course, staff of our own Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Service (GHS) for their collective efforts.

It is indeed a major achievement, given that at the beginning of the century (2000), about 2.8 million people in the country were estimated to be at risk of this devastating, but preventable disease.

As we swim in the flood of congratulations that keep pouring in from the across the globe, THE PUBLISHER wishes to caution the stakeholders that this is no time to rest.

In our view, apart from sharing what we have learned with other countries so they can also eliminate this awful disease, it is equally important that Ghana now concentrates her efforts towards eliminating other neglected tropical diseases such as Lymphatic Filariasis and River Blindness.