Introduction
Epidemiology
Trachoma is prevalent in only in low-income countries with poor and marginalised populations and in Australia in remote Indigenous communities. The late stage of Trachomatous Trichiasis is found across the country.
In 1998 the WHO launched the Global Elimination of Trachoma by 2020 (GET 2020). This goal was not reached by all countries in 2020 in part due to the global pandemic of SARS-CoV-2.
But two decades of global work drastically reduced the number of people at risk of blindness from trachoma from 1.5 billion in 2002 to under 137 million in 2020 – a 91% decrease. From 2002 to 2020 trichiasis had dropped from an estimated 7.6 million to 2 million. Global work to eliminate trachoma as a public health problem continues. The 2020 global deadline is now linked with that for other Neglected Tropical Diseases and the Sustainable Development Goals with a new target date of 2030. [WHO news: Amid continued progress, trachoma elimination programmes set their sights on 2030]
The new target date for trachoma elimination as a public health problem in Australia is 2022.