TOH edition: Tuesday, 15 September 2026 · Health & Medicine
Two Billion People Across Southeast Asia Are Now Safe From the World's Leading Cause of Infectious Blindness
Reported by Good News Network
Publisher date:
Timor-Leste has been officially certified free of trachoma by the World Health Organization, completing the elimination of the disease across the entire Southeast Asian region. The milestone represents decades of grassroots screenings, sanitation improvements, and community medical care that have lifted a threat that once blinded millions. More than two billion people in the region now live free from the world's leading infectious cause of blindness.
Decades of patient, coordinated public health work have permanently protected more than two billion people from an ancient cause of preventable blindness.
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