At least 2.2 billion people suffer from severe eye disease or blindness: ancient diseases of poverty, Mulu’s story

ROME – At least 2.2 billion people are afflicted with severe eye disease or blindness. One billion people have preventable eye conditions. According to World Report On Vision WHO estimates that population growth and aging – together with lifestyle changes and urbanization – will “also dramatically increase” the number of people with eye disease, vision impairment and blindness in the coming decades. This is the story of a somewhat special mother who managed to overcome trachoma. Her name is Mulu, she is 50 years old and she is the grandmother of Yabsera, 3 years old. She lives in Wolkite, in southern Ethiopia, where she and her family cultivate fields of coffee and enset (“false bananas”).

Sand in the eyes. A year ago, Mulu began to have burning eyes. “I felt sand inside my eyes which caused me great pain, more and more acute, so much so that at a certain point I was no longer able to follow the work at home and in the fields. Since my husband is elderly, my son had to drop out of school to help me. And my neighbors accompanied me to the market, because I couldn’t move alone anymore”. Since Mulu still didn’t get well, her daughter, Meseret, started looking for solutions and discovered the possibility of subjecting her mother to a free visit to a hospital located a hundred kilometers away, the Grarbet Tehadiso Mahber, an eye center CBM partner in Butajira city.

GTM hospital. In the world, according to the World Report on Sight according to the WHO, one in two people with vision problems do not have access to eye care services. Overall, they are over 1 billion people, concentrated above all in developing countries. Yet 90% of all vision disorders are preventable and treatable. Thanks to the projects of CBM, a humanitarian organization engaged in the prevention and treatment of visual impairments in the countries of the southern hemisphere, Mulu was able to go to the hospital and stay alive: she was suffering from trachoma, the main infectious cause of blindness in the world. Trachoma is a bacterial eye disease that affects 1.9 million people. It is part of the Forgotten Tropical Diseases (NTD), a group of 20 parasitic, bacterial or viral infectious diseases, which – according to WHO data – put at risk over a billion people worldwide, especially women and children, mainly in tropical areas and subtropics among the most vulnerable and marginalized populations. It was therefore vital for her to undergo an operation.

The forgotten diseases. They are ancient diseases of poverty that affect those who live in areas where there is a lack of clean water and medical and health services. They are spread by human contact, contaminated water, insects, soil infested with worm eggs or larvae. More than 40% of the global NTD load is concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa. Why “forget”? Because for a long time they have been little considered in national health programs with respect to diseases with high mortality such as HIV/AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis. Yet, in addition to the important numbers they record, they are diseases that also cause pain, stigma and social discrimination; they also hinder economic growth by trapping people, families and entire communities in a cycle of poverty-disability. Today they are mentioned in Goal 3 of the Health Agenda: “By 2030, end the epidemics of AIDS, TB, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, waterborne diseases and other communicable diseases”.

Mulu has recovered his sight. Mulu’s operation, which she also visited in the following days to ensure the absence of infections, was a success and she returned home, to be a mother and grandmother as before, taking care of the whole family again. “Whoever I meet with this problem – she says Mulu-I will certainly send him here to be treated!”. Mulu’s story is one of the many that CBM deals with which in Ethiopia, as well as in South Sudan, intervenes following the SAFE strategy recommended by the WHO since 1993: S stands for Surgery, or surgery to treat the advanced stage of trachoma; A for Antibiotics, because antibiotics are used to eliminate the infection; F for Facial cleanliness, i.e. facial cleansing and hygiene; And for Enrironmental improvement, i.e. improvement of the environment with access to water and sanitation.

Three projects for 260,000 people. At the moment there are 260 thousand people that CMB Italia is following in the Amhara Region in northern Ethiopia and in the Region of Nations, Nationalities and Peoples in the south: thanks to three projects, they can benefit from the distribution of antibiotics, access to clean water thanks to the construction of wells and water systems, training sessions dedicated to hygiene. Furthermore, by 2025 there will be over 5,600 people who can be operated on for trichiasis, or the deviation of the eyelashes that rub against the eyeball, a painful consequence of trachoma which causes irreversible opacities and consequent blindness.

In one year, 492 projects in 46 countries. CBM Italia is part of CBM – Christian Blind Mission, an international organization recognized by the WHO for its over 110-year commitment to ensuring accessible and quality eye care. The latest born in the CBM house is the campaign “Out of the shadows, for the right to see and be seen” which aims to guarantee eye care for more than one million people, in just one year, in nine countries in the South of the world, with an integrated approach between prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of visual impairments and inclusion in the community. In the last year, CBM has carried out 492 projects in 46 countries around the world, ten of which in Italy, reaching 5 million beneficiaries, in line with the 2030 In Sight strategy of IAPB (International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness). Three objectives: to give everyone the opportunity to have an eye exam, receive eye care at affordable prices, have glasses when they need them.