US drugs firm helps communist Vietnam fight trachoma HANOI - US pharmaceutical firm Pfizer Inc on Wednesday gave communist Vietnam drugs worth 16.8 million dollars to help eradicate the blindness-causing disease trachoma in a move US ambassador Pete Peterson hailed as a model of private charity. The 1.2 million doses of the antibiotic Zithromax will be used to launch Vietnam's first large-scale public health drug donation programme among the three million residents of the eight provinces where trachoma remains particularly prevalent. The International Trachoma Initiative (ITI), a partnership between Pfizer and the New York-based charity, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, will donate a further 1.2 million dollars for surgery, public education campaigns and the provision of clean water supplies to complement the two-year medication programme. Vietnam has made great progress in eliminating the disease, which is the world's leading preventable cause of blindness, reducing its incidence from more than 60 percent in 1960 to 19.9 percent in 1986 and just over seven percent in 1995. But 5.5 million Vietnamese still suffer from active trachoma, of whom around 900,000 face complications leading to blindness, and the authorities here want to take the lead in becoming one of the first Asian countries to eradicate the disease entirely. "The elimination of trachoma has long been a priority for our country," said Deputy Health Minister Le Ngoc Trong. "Our goal is to eliminate blinding trachoma countrywide by 2010," 10 years ahead of the World Health Organization target for its global eradication. Peterson said Washington was proud to have been invited to help with Vietnam's hugely successful efforts to eliminate trachoma but stressed that the initiative was a private sector one which he hoped Vietnam would see as a model for the future. "The US embassy specifically -- and the US government as well -- is very happy to have been invited to assist the Vietnamese government in this effort," he said. "But let me make an interesting notation here -- there is no US government funding support for this effort. This is the work of the charity of US private enterprise and foundations. "In the US system we look to the government for leadership but we don't always look to them for funding," he said. Petersen's comments were echoed by Pfizer vice-president Chuck Hardwick. "Throughout the world, it is clear that neither governments working alone nor the private sector alone can meet the health care needs of the world's population," he said. Vietnam is the sole Asian country among the five targetted by ITI for accelerated trachoma eradication. The others are Ghana, Mali, Morocco and Tanzania. The medication campaign will be accompanied by a huge public education effort in the countryside and on provincial television to stress the importance of face washing and clean water in prevention of the disease. Peterson -- the United States first post-war ambassador to Vietnam -- hailed the transformed relations between the two countries. "It has been just 25 years since hostilities between Vietnam and the United States drew to a close. Who would have forseen then the common purpose being forged here today?" he wrote. Agence France Presse - June 28, 2000.