Antibiotics Alone No Match for Blinding Eye Infection Trachoma
Antibiotics offer no effective treatment for trachoma, an infectious eye disease that is the second leading cause of blindness after cataract, a study indicates.
Some 600 million people worldwide are vulnerable to trachoma, and 146 million need treatment to preserve their sight, the World Health Organization estimates.
The new study, done in Vietnam, found that the benefits of antibiotic treatment were short-lived.
"This study found that when we treated children with the antibiotic azithromycin, the rate of infection and of the disease decreased, out to two years, but after two years of the last treatment, there was a rebound phenomenon, with the re-infection rate increasing," warned researcher Dr. Deborah Dean, a senior scientist at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California.
Her team reported the findings in the Sept. 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Trachoma is caused by the Chlamydia trachomatis bacterium, which can infect the eyes and genitals. While the disease is most common in children, over several decades of re-infection, the continuing inflammation can force the eyelids to invert. This forces the lashes to abrade the cornea and produces blinding scars.
The bacteria are spread by means of hand-to-eye contact and by flies that feed on cow dung and human waste in poor villages. In Africa and Asia, unclean conditions keep the bacteria rampant. Up to 25 percent of older people infected with the microbe eventually will go blind.
To learn more about the fight against trachoma, visit the International Trachoma Initiative.
Filed under Eye Treatment
You may also like to read
- Eye blinding trachoma is a severe threat for Sudan
- Pfizer Antibiotic Zithromax for Eye Infection May Bring Re-Infections
- Uganda Plans to Fight Against Trachoma Disease Which Increases the Risk of Blindness
- Speedy, Low-Cost And Easy-To-Use Test To Detect Trachoma
- Single Mass Antibiotic Treatment Is Not Enough To Treat And Eliminate Trachoma
- Contagious Eye Infection Going Around Bostonia Community
- Free Eye Surgery at Nebbi Hospital- Uganda
- Antibiotic Doxycycline Successfully Treats Eye Lymphoma
- New Contact Lens May Reduce Risk of Eye Infection
- Artificial lens coated with antibiotic may reduce post operative eye infection
