Health · 2 March 2026
WHO: We Cut Blindness Risk by 94% Since 2002
Photo by Martin Baron on Unsplash
On World Hearing Day, the WHO reported one of public health's most quietly remarkable victories: the number of people at risk of trachoma - the world's leading infectious cause of blindness - has fallen from 1.5 billion in 2002 to under 97 million today. Six countries eliminated the disease entirely in 2025 alone, including Egypt, Fiji, and Senegal. The WHO is now calling for hearing and vision screening in all schools globally. The achievement took three decades of sustained sanitation, diagnosis, and antibiotic rollouts.
Reported by World Health Organisation · How we write briefs