School children in Kenya sing a song about preventing trachoma

Big plans revealed on World Sight Day

Today Sightsavers is proud to announce plans to step up efforts to eliminate blinding trachoma!

We have already made great strides - treating 1.8 million people in 2010 with antibiotics and over 15,000 with surgery. Ghana and The Gambia are close to being able to eliminate the disease for good!

However according to the International Coalition for Trachoma Control (a coalition of which we are a member) trachoma blinds four people every hour and causes one person to experience severe sight loss every four minutes.

Eradicated in the developed world, it's estimated that the diseases costs the 59 countries it still exists in up to $6 million ever year. This is because the pain and ensuing blindness make it difficult to access to education, and prevents people from being able to work, or care for themselves and their families.

In response to this, we have pledged to raise an extra €6.2 million a year between now and 2020, which is the biggest push we have ever made towards the prevention and cure of the disease.

Elimination is certainly an ambitious goal, but it's exciting to think that in less than ten years this agonizing eye condition could be wiped out for good! Together, we can do it!