Annual Trachoma Treatments May Be Unnecessary

HealthDay, April, 2008 by Robert Preidt

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In communities with moderate levels of the eye disease trachoma, one or two rounds of high coverage mass treatment with the antibiotic azithromycin may be sufficient to eliminate the infection, researchers say.

A team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine's Trachoma Group said its findings challenge the World Health Organization's recommendation for annual antibiotic treatment and called for a re-evaluation of how communities affected with trachoma are treated.

The five-year study was conducted in Kahe Mpya, Tanzania. After an initial round of mass treatment (97.6 percent of residents) with single-dose azithromycin, the prevalence of trachoma decreased from 9.5 percent to 0.1 percent after two years.

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A second round of mass treatment was carried out two years after the first round. Three years after the second round of mass treatment, trachoma DNA was not detected in the eyes of any ...

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Annual Trachoma Treatments May Be Unnecessary

HealthDay, April, 2008 by Robert Preidt

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