DEVELOPMENT
REPORT - Pfizer Adds to Fight to End Blindness from Trachoma
By Jill Moss
This is Robert Cohen with the VOA Special English
Development Report.
The drug company Pfizer says it will give enough medicine
free of charge to treat about ninety percent of people with trachoma（沙眼）.
This eye infection is the leading cause of preventable blindness. An
estimated one-hundred-fifty-million people have trachoma. Most live
in developing nations.
Pfizer said from New York that it will give away one-hundred-thirty-five-million
treatments of Zithromax over the next five years. Pfizer invented this
antibiotic drug and holds the patent rights until two-thousand-six.
After that, other companies can make their own versions. One dose of
Zithromax a year can prevent a trachoma infection from progressing.
Pfizer's new donation will help the World Health Organization
with its goal to end trachoma by two-thousand-twenty. Joseph Cook heads
the W-H-O's International Trachoma Initiative. He says the success over
the past five years proves that the goal is within reach.
Since nineteen-ninety-nine, Pfizer has given away
eight-million doses of Zithromax to the W-H-O campaign. The nine countries
already in the program include Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Morocco and Nepal.
The other are Niger, Sudan, Tanzania and Vietnam. Initiative officials
say the effort will expand to at least ten more countries. The Washington
Post reported that Senegal and Mauritania are the next to be added.
Antibiotics are not the only method for dealing with
trachoma. The World Health Organization supports a program known as
the "SAFE Strategy." "S" stands for surgical operations,
for the most severe cases. "A" stands for antibiotics, such
as Zithromax. "F" stands for face washing, to reduce the spread
of the disease. And "E" stands for environmental changes.
These include the development of clean water supplies and better living
conditions.
Trachoma begins as a bacterial infection inside the
upper eyelids（眼睑）. Hands, clothes or
insects that have touched fluid from the eyes or nose of an infected
person can spread the disease. Children and women are at greatest risk
-- women, because they are often around children.
Trachoma has blinded about six-million people. Blindness
usually happens during the most economically productive years of life.
You can learn more on the Internet at trachoma-dot-o-r-g.
This VOA Special English Development Report was written
by Jill Moss. I'm Robert Cohen.
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