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The Vietnam News

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Vietnam aims to be rid of blindness from trachoma by 2010

HANOI - Vietnam is aiming to eradicate trachoma, which causes blindness, within five years, a decade before the global elimination target date of 2020 set by the World Health Organization (WHO), officials said.

"We are proud to have reduced the incidence of trachoma so dramatically as a result of our national trachoma control strategy," Vice Minister of Health Tran Chi Liem said in a statement. Vietnam, where the International Trachoma Initiative was launched in 2000, has proven to be a model in the fight against the disease, according to the statement issued to coincide with a visit by former US supermodel Cheryl Tiegs to promote awareness. Trachoma is the world's leading cause of preventable blindness.

It is easily spread from mother to child and through casual contact, but health officials said it could be controlled through improved hygiene, sanitation, use of antibiotics and simple surgery in advanced cases. Approximately eight million people are visually impaired as a result of trachoma all over the world. The WHO estimates that 10 percent of the world's population is at risk of contracting trachoma, making it a major public health threat. In Vietnam, an estimated 11 million people are at risk of infection, with 300,000 cases of trachoma-related blindness.

Agence France Presse - July 07, 2005.